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Home , Albie Booth, Barry Word, Bill Fulcher, Charles Herty, Eddie McAshan, Ed Hinton (sportswriter)

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Desegregating the Holy Day: Football, blacks and the

Hughes, Raymond, Ph.D. The , 1991

UMI 300N. ZeebRd. Ann Aitoor, MI 48106

DESEGREGATING THE HOLY DAY: FOOTBALL, BLACKS AND THE SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By Raymond Hughes, M.S.

*****

The Ohio State University 1991

Dissertation Committee: Approved by Melvin Adelman T»e(Un c£ djJ) Nancy Wardwell Adviser School of Health, Physical Seymour Kleinman Education and Recreation Copyright by Raymond Hughes 1991 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to express his sincere gratitude to his adviser, Dr. Melvin L. Adelman. Clearly, without his guidance, assistance, constant encouragement and patience, this endeavor could not have been plausible. To Dr. Seymour Kleinman and Dr. Nancy Wardwell, members of my committee, my warmest appreciation. The writer is extremely grateful to colleagues, friends, and a multiplicity of personalities who contributed in any way toward the successful completion of this study. Special recognition is noted for the athletic associations of the University of and Georgia Institute of Technology for their cooperation in providing me with numerous articles, documents, and general information. Sincere thanks to my typist, Dorrie Wells and to Dr. Ora Cooks for her patience in reading my materials. Finally, and most importantly, the institutional support provided by Clark University is invaluable and greatly appreciated.

ii VITA

July 21, 1938 ...... Born - Danville, Virginia 1962 ...... B.S., Clark College, Atlanta, Georgia 1962-1963 ...... Junior High School Teacher Atlanta City, New Jersey 1963-1965 ...... Armed Forces Berlin, Germany 1970-1971 ...... M.S., Syracuse University Syracuse, 1971 - Present ...... Assistant Professor of Health and Physical Education, Director of Intramural Sports and Recreational Activities, Clark Atlanta University

FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation Studies in: Sport History, Dr. Melvin L. Adelman, Sport Philosophy, Dr. Seymour Kleinman, Recreation, Dr. Nancy Wardwell, and Black Studies, Dr. Sue Jewell TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...... ii VITA ...... iii CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 CHAPTER I NOTES ...... 7 II. FOOTBALL AMONG THE MAGNOLIAS AND MOCKINGBIRDS . 8 A. THE GAME COME S O U T H ...... 8 B. A CONFERENCE IS F O U N D E D ...... 12 C. FOOTBALL WITH A SOUTHERN A C C E N T ...... 14 D. THE WAY IT W A S ...... 26 E. THE ROLE OF BLACK COLLEGES ...... 28 CHAPTER II N O T E S ...... 41 III. DESEGREGATING THE HOLY DA Y ...... 46 A. SATURDAY IS THE HOLY D A Y ...... 46 B. DIXIE AND FRENZY...... 55 C. BREACHING THE CUSTOM...... 58 D. A LANDMARK B O W L ...... 63 E. THE DOOR IS OPEN, BUT NOT W I D E ...... 75 CHAPTER III N O T E S ...... 83 IV. BLACK ATHLETIC SUCCESS ...... 90 A. ROLL TIDE ROLL ...... 90 B. MELDING TRADITION AT OLE M I S S ...... 104 C. COME ON DOWN.. .TELL US OF YOUR TIME .... 114 CHAPTER IV NOTES ...... 139

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUED)

CHAPTER PAGE V. FOOTBALL RAISES THE NATURAL ART OF GETTING-TO-KNOW ...... 149 A. THE OLE MISS NETWORK...... 149 B. NOTHING UNUSUAL, EXCEPT S I Z E ...... 166 C. MADE A GOOD BLACK HERO . . . 169 CHAPTER V N O T E S ...... 188 VI. 1ST. DOWN AND YEARS TO G O ...... 197 A. CIVIL RIGHTS: LONG ON TIME, SHORT ON PROGRESS...... 197 B. THE IRRECONCILABLE ADVERSARIES: HUNGER VS H E R E D I T Y ...... 201 C. LONG AS THEY PLAY GOOD S A R D Y ...... 206 D. EPILOGUE...... 224 CHAPTER VI NOTES ...... 227 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 245

V CHAPTER I - * INTRODUCTION

Over the past two decades a growing number of historians have examined the sporting experiences of black from plantation days to the present. While a comprehensive overview has yet to be constructed, their research has begun to richly detail black participation in sport, especially during the twentieth-century, and to link its meaning and significance to the broader social and racial climate. The scholarship has focused on a variety of divergent themes, such as prominent black sporting figures, the Negro leagues and one study has investigated the meaning and development of athletics amongst the black community of Pittsburgh. Given the tremendous increase in the number and visibility of black athletes in both professional and collegiate sport since World War II, it is hardly surprising that much of the historical literature on black involvement in sport has centered around the issue of the integration of athletics. Such works have dissected how blacks, and some white supporters, confronted racist America on the playing field, the tensions they produced and the multiple meanings they generated. In explicating the turmoil and triumphs of the black athlete, historians have 1 2 indicated how the experiences of the black athlete has remained embedded within the context of the white power structure and the ongoing, albeit shifting, nature of racist attitudes and practices.1 This study examines the desegregation of in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) on two interrelated and interconnected levels. On one level, it explores how the Civil rights Movement coalesced with white southerners deep commitment to the gridiron game to produce the integration of the respective SEC football teams during the late 1960s and early 1970s. On another level it examines the experiences of the black football players that arrived at these still predominantly white institutions and how they were, and continued to be, shaped by institutional racism and the prevalent attitude of white southerners towards blacks. The work looks at the problems created by the emergence of black athletes and the difficulties they confronted; the interactions between white and black teammates; the consequences of and multi-layered meanings black extrapolated from their involvement in SEC football; and the educational crisis the black athlete continues to face. Football came to the South later than it did to its northern counterparts, but when it arrived among the magnolias and the mockingbirds its produced an ambiance and intensity all its own. Among southerners football was more 3 than a game, it was a religious expression and a way of life, as well as a means to articulate and confront the ignominious defeat they had suffered during the Civil War. During the first half of the twentieth century, southerners could fight their gridiron battles within the context of their segregationist practices. However, subsequently pressure from the Civil Rights Movement and from the significant expansion in the number of talented black athletes playing on collegiate football teams at northern institutions began to chip away at the white only athletic programs at SEC and other southern universities. SEC institutions initially resisted making any effort to recruit and compete against blacks. But by the middle of the 1960s shifts in the social and racial climate combined with a virulent "win-at-all-cost" mentality, which demanded the presence of talented black athletes to remain nationally competitive in collegiate football, led to the breakdown of the segregationist sports practices at SEC institutions. The arrival of Greg Page, a black defensive end, on the campus of the in the Fall of 1967 signaled that the times were slowly changing in the South and nowhere were the winds of change more pronounced than in SEC football. The winds of change would be so dramatic that within two decades more than half of the players on the football teams that make up this conference would be black.2 4 The experiences of the black athlete at SEC institutions encapsulates to a certain degree the story of black Americans since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It is a portrait of important gains and valued opportunities, but it is also one which continues to remain marred by the ongoingness of racial prejudice and stereotyping. On one level the desegregation of the Southeastern Conference intercollegiate football programs has proven to be one of the great success stories in the history of sport in the Deep South. When one considers such prominent football powerhouses as those at Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, and Tennessee, it is without question that their continual high position within the rankings is strongly linked to the presence of a large percentage of skilled black players on their respective clubs. The integration of the football teams at these institutions clearly answered in the affirmative the question of whether black athletes in the South could compete on equal terms with their generally more privileged white counterparts. In addition, several black stars, most notably Herschel Walker and Vincent "Bo" Jackson have used their college careers as stepping stones to lucrative professional ones. It is also important to note that when effectively accomplished, integrated intercollegiate football in the SEC has to some degree served to facilitate racial tolerance, especially 5 among teammates, and to assist blacks in overcoming a vast array of societal handicaps. The integration of SEC football has had its positive dimensions, but the experiences of black athletes at these still predominantly white institutions have been and continue to be plagued by pain and problems. While white southerners are now more than happy to cheer their black heroes on Saturday and they envision the integration of SEC football with pride, the process of desegregation has not eliminated racist attitudes and acts. Lionized on Saturday, but never truly understood or fully accepted, the black athlete in the SEC has often been exploited, and no where is this more clearly indicated than in the "educational crisis" the black athlete still confronts. Although black football players in the SEC were often thrown into an environment radically different from whence they came, enmeshed in an athletic system more concerned with dollars than with their education, and continually plagued by a racial mentality, their response was as varied as the black experience in America itself. For some football served as a way to integrate into the SEC community. For others it was something to use to move on to bigger and at times better things. Finally, there were those who were crushed by the weight of the problems and unfulfilled promises. The examination of the integration of Southeastern Conference and its meaning for black football players begins by looking at how the gridiron game cane South. The initial chapter also discusses the establishment of the SEC, the ambiance and importance of the sport there. It also explores the growth of black participation in football in South, especially at black colleges. The following chapter discusses football in the segregated South and looks at how southerners sought to maintain that system in the 1950s as pressure for change mounted and concludes with an examination of the emergence of the first integrated SEC football program at the University of Kentucky. Chapter Four examines the process of desegregation at other SEC universities and investigates the trials and tribulation of three black pioneer football players — Richard Wilson, Godfrey Dillard and Eddie HcAshan. The subsequent chapter looks at how one black player used his football career to assist blacks at his alma mater, explores how football facilitate contacts between white and black teammates and discusses Herschel Walker and the dilemma that the black hero confronts. The final chapter analyzes the various problems and the ongoing exploitation of the black SEC football player. CHAPTER I NOTES

’For some examples of this literature see, David K. Wiggins, "The Play of Slave Children in the Plantation Communities of the Old South," Journal of Sport History. 7 (Summer 1980), 21-39; Randy Roberts, Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes (New York: Free Press, 1983)? William Baker, Jesse Owens: An American Life (New York: Free Press, 1987); Janet Bruce, The Kansas Citv Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985); Donn Rogosin, Invisible Men: Life in Baseball's Negro Leagues (New York: Antheneum, 1985); Rob Ruck, Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987). For some examples of the theme of integration and the black experience in collegiate sport, see Jules Tygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); William M. Simons, "Jackie Robinson and the American Mind: Journalistic Perceptions of the Reintegration of Baseball," Journal of Sport History. 12 (1985): 39-64; David K. Wiggins, "Wendell Smith, the Pittsburgh Courier-Journal and the Champaign to Include Blacks in Organized Baseball, 1933-1945," ibid., 10 (Summer 1983): 5-29; Donald Spivey, "The Black Athlete in Big-Time Intercollegiate Sports," Phylon. 44 (1983): 116-25; idem., "1 End Jim Crow in Sports': The Protest at New York University, 1940-1941," Journal of Sport History. 15 (1988): 282-303; David K. Wiggins, "'The Future of College Athletics is at Stake': Black Athletes and Racial Turmoil on Three Predominantly White University Campuses, 1968-1972," ibid., 15 (1988): 304-33; Ronald E. Marcello, "The Integration of Intercollegiate Athletics in Texas: North Texas State College as a Test Case," ibid., 14 (1987): 286-316. 2For a brief look at the integration of intercollegiate athletics in the SEC, see Joan Paul, Richard V. McGhee and Helen Fant, "The Arrival and Ascendence of Black Athletes in the Southeastern Conference, 1966-1980," Phvlon. 45 (1984): 284-97.

7 CHAPTER II FOOTBALL AMONG THE MAGNOLIAS AND MOCKINGBIRDS A. THE GAME COME SOUTH

Southerners adopted ballgames much slower than their northern and midwestern counterparts as a result of the continued strength of an agrarian society and the ongoing popularity of pastimes linked to such a way of life. While southerners did not participate in football for more than a decade after it had emerged in the elite universities of the North, the day was not far off when they would advise foreigners that if they wanted to know the heart and mind of southerners, they had better learn football. Despite its critics, football, bristling with energy and a passionate release for the masses, gradually became an authentic force in the South. Wildly partisan crowds mounted, winning became important, intense rivalries developed and with them sprang the win-at-all-costs mentality.1 By 1880, football was no longer the property of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. On April 9, 1880, the sport made its southern debut at Stoll Field at the University of Kentucky, then known as Kentucky A&M. Kentucky was merely the host of the contest, in which Transylvania College upset Centre College 13 to 0. According to the Lexington Daily Transcript. an estimated 500 ladies and gentlemen watched the game. Despite the blood lust and lack of decent facilities, Kentucky A&M challenged Transylvania to a game in November 1881, which it would win 7 to 1. The was on. By 1895, nine college from what is today the SEC had football teams.2 The game they played in 1880 was far less sophisticated than the one played today. For example, unless a team lost the ball on a fumble, there was just no way for the other side to get control of it. If pushed back to its own goal line, the team with the ball merely made a voluntary safety, which counted nothing against it. The ball was then brought back out to the 25-yard line and the teams started over again. The rule makers, headed by Walter Camp, then came to the rescue by announcing that henceforth a team had three downs to either gain five yards or lose ten yards, otherwise it had to surrender the ball to its opponent. This 1882 change provided an impetus for the development of a genuine offense, and it put the white lines across the field. Now football started to progress. The evolution from English rugby into the game as it is known today was well under way, with the running game forging ahead of the kicking one and the system of downs installed on a field marked off as a gridiron.3 The Kentucky-Centre game of 1880 was representative of the early style of football. The length of the field 10 between goal lines was 110 yards, not 100, and that made longer runs possible. There were no 5-yard stripe lines running across the field, no linesmen, and no lone sticks. The referee kept track of distance just by dropping a handkerchief where he estimated the ball was last in action. The players of both sides would slyly try to move it while some teammate engaged the referee in a discussion of the rules to distract him. There was no platoon football; players had to play both ways, offense and defense. Teams carried only four substitutes, even though they sometimes scheduled games two or three days in succession. There were 45 minutes to a half, not 30, and the old game had not yet been chopped up into quarters. Football was truly a game for "iron men." Once the opening shot was fired, a player could not leave unless hurt. The players wore jerseys and shorts of wide variety. They wore no helmets or pads, and a man who dared defy this tradition was considered a sissy. Long hair was the only head protection they had, so as part of the preseason preparatory program they would begin letting their hair grow in June.4 Football, as we know it today in the South, made its initial appearance at Kentucky in 1891. W. Durrant Berry, who had played under Amos Alonzo Stagg at the University of Chicago, traveled south to Centre College, where he taught the game to his male students. In Baton Rouge, the 11 Louisiana State University Tigers, brimming with adrenaline left over from the Civil War, had heard about this thing called football and were looking for someone to teach it to them. Charles E. Coates, a chemistry instructor from John Hopkins University, was hired to coach the team. He quickly challenged T.S. Bayne, the new football coach at Tulane, to a game. The teams played in on November 25, 1893. Tulane, boasting a powerful ground attack, won 34-0 and football came to Louisiana. Meanwhile, the University of battered Southwest Baptist University 56-0 on November 11th of that same year. On October 27, 1894, Ole Miss started something its forces have tried to duplicate ever since. It whipped Alabama 6-0 at Jackson, Mississippi, to mark the first football contest between the schools. Dr. Charles Herty introduced the game to the in 1892 by rolling over Mercer 50-0. Three week later, on February 20, 1892, in Atlanta, he coaxed the Agricultural & Mechanical College of Alabama (later, renamed ) into a contest with Georgia in what became Dixie's oldest football rivalry. A year later, the famous Georgia-Georgia series was launched. The Bulldogs deeply resented the fact that the Tech coach, , an infantry lieutenant who had served with the command that captured Geronimo, slipped on a battle uniform and led Tech to a 28-0 victory. Amid flashing knives and a rainfall of stones, Wood and his players caught the first 12 coals car out of town. Such was the way old football rivalries took root and flowered in the south.5

B. A CONFERENCE IS FOUNDED The problems of governing intercollegiate athletics in the South were awesome. Until Dr. William L. Dudley of invited faculty representatives from Alabama, Auburn, Sewanee, Georgia, , and to meet with him in Atlanta on December 22, 1894, there were no rules of eligibility and no organization to draw up or enforce any. Colleges commonly bolstered their teams with raw-boned recruits not even enrolled in school. Tramp athletes played for as many as three and four different schools, without attending classes. Some coaches, such as Louisiana State's A.P. Simmonds, a Yale man, even put themselves in their lineups. In the 1894 Ole Miss game at Baton Route, Coach Simmonds scored the Tigers' only in a 26-6 loss. It was not unusual for a man to play for eight or so years for the same school. No one thought anything of it; everyone did it.6 After one southern newspaper editorialized that college football "has a tendency to spawn a class of gnarled, rough animals, better suited for street brawling than for addressing the mighty domestic problems confronting America," Dr. Dudley recognized that the time had come to clean up football's image. The result was that a meeting of southern faculty representatives was held at the Kimball 13 House in Atlanta.7 From it came the formal designation "Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference," or SIAA, the forerunner of today's Southeastern Conference. "Our purpose is to develop, regulate, and purify intercollegiate athletics here in the South," said Dr. Dudley, who served as president of the league for the next twenty years. The seven representatives at the first meeting established the following set of rules: 1. Each school agreed to appoint a committee on college athletics to supervise its teams and to shoulder all responsibility for enforcing school rules regarding athletics and all intercollegiate sports. 2. No one could participate in athletics unless he was a bona-fide student doing full classroom work; no athlete who had participated in any match game as a member of any other college team would be allowed to participate in any game as a member of another college team, until he had been enrolled in his present school for at least six months. 3. No person was eligible to participate in intercollegiate athletics who received any gift, remuneration, or pay for his services on the college team. Professional athletes were out. 4. Students playing under an assumed name were barred. 5. Those delinquent in class studies were ineligible to participate in athletics. 6. College teams could not engage in games with pro teams. 7. Before each game a list of team members was to be presented by each school to the other, certifying that all the players met the conditions of the rules adopted. It was the duty of the team captains to enforce this rule. 8. No coach or member of the training staff was allowed to participate in college games. 14 9. All games would be played on fields either owned by or under the immediate control of one or both of the colleges participating in the contest*. 10. Any student of any institution who was pursuing a regularly prescribed resident graduate course within such institution, whether for an advanced degree or in one of its professional schools, was permitted to play for the minimum number of years required for securing the graduate or professional degree for which he was a candidate.8

In the years ahead the rules would be amplified, reconsidered, strengthened, softened, praised, jeered, and ignored. The group agreed to meet several times annually as a permanent body and to accept other schools in the South who felt about athletic control as they did, meaning that each member would police itself as well as each other. In 1895, Cumberland, LSU, Ole Hiss, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Tulane, and Texas brought to fourteen the number of schools making up the SIAA. By 1920, the conference had grown to thirty members, before splintering up to form the Southern, Southeastern, and Atlantic Coast conferences.9

C. FOOTBALL WITH A SOUTHERN ACCENT When Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two British surveyors, laid out their invisible line along the South in 1763, they drew it for the centuries. The Mason-Dixon line as a mind-set still exists today, and there's no more apt way to describe the caliber of college football played below it than as super, year in and year out. Down there in the land of cotton they still make gods of football players. Football weekends are an endless series of cocktail parties or just a bunch of good old boys sitting around sipping an endless stream of good bourbon and the crowds are raucous. "When you hear forty-six thousand Rebels screaming for your blood, and meaning it, it can be a little eerie," testified Georgia coach . Former Georgia Tech coach felt the same way about Louisiana State. Once, after escaping from Baton Rouge with his Yellow Jackets, Dodd said, "I know now I'd rather face the lions in the coliseum." But if you escaped from Baton Route, there is still Oxford and starkville, Athens and Tuscaloosa, and Auburn and Gainesville, where they are all lions and coliseums.10 Part of the charm of the Southeastern Conference is its traffic problems on game day. Most of the towns have only one road in and one out, with madness in between. In Oxford, the fans of Ole Miss solve the problem of traffic by parking their cars and trudging off to the student union. There they have been known to plunk down their bottles of bourbon right on the tables under the eyes of the local peace officers, who obligingly look the other way.11 The traffic problem is not as complex in Athens, the home for the , who can point with pride to the city's fine old antebellum homes and numerous churches. The city reeks of culture. It was in Athens in 1929 that Georgia played Yale in what has become known as the greatest day in southern football history. Yale, led by Albie Booth, was then a national power, but it was a hot, muggy day, and the Yale players, wearing thick blue stockings, soon wilted. One sports journalist from the South called the day "the biggest thing to happen in the South since Appomattox - except we won.” It was also from Athens that the Bulldogs left in 1908 for Knoxville for an important game with the , who already despised them. Perhaps it was that day that the spirit of southern football was born. Late in the second quarter, a Georgia halfback swept around his end and was shouldered out of bounds at the Tennessee one-yard line. At this point there appeared a large mountaineer wearing a green frock coat and a four-gallon hat and reeking of sour mash. In one hand he brandished a .38 revolver, with the other he pointed to the goal. "The first man who crosses that line," he snarled, "will get a in his carcass." On the next play, not surprisingly, Georgia fumbled the ball. Tennessee won, 10-0.12 What you find in Baton Rouge is typical of the football frenzy in the South. No city in the country hath greater love for its football team. So deep is the feeling that workers arrange vacations, night shifts, bowling leagues, and even family pregnancies so that they won't conflict with LSU games. "Nowhere is the town spirit better," says Charlie McClendon, who coached the Tigers for eighteen 17 years. "It is not a law to love the LSU football team, but the city fathers could probably get one if they wanted. The wild excitement inside Tiger Stadium is shattering. It's like an electric wire running from the stands to the field."13 The electricity that McClendon talks about completely stuns opponents. As a matter of fact, it sometimes reaches such a level of ferocity that visiting coaches have been known to bench their best sophomores, fearing they will fall apart in the tumultuous din. There is hardly a visiting coach alive who has not compared a game in Baton Rouge with the "Timid Soul" versus "Jaws." The level of enthusiasm is astonishing. The crowd volume is so shaking that Charlie McClendon was known to conduct practices with a loudspeaker blaring recorded stadium roars. The person who probably made LSU football spirit what it is was former Governor Huey Long, whose antic fanaticism has never been equaled. He led parades, delivered blistering locker-room pep talks, and screamed signals to the players from the sidelines. Politically and athletically, Govenor Long tossed his weight around. He once threatened to raise taxes on railroad bridges 4,000 percent if the Illinois Central did not lower its fare for LSU students taking a football special to Nashville for the Vanderbilt game; the fare dropped from nineteen dollars to six. Another time, when Long heard that the date of a circus visit to Baton Rouge was hurting LSU 18 ticket sales, he called the manager of the troupe and warned that he would force the manager to put every lion, tiger, elephant, and gorilla through a sheep dip, to prevent all sorts of foul diseases, unless the show date was changed, which it was, of course.14 There was an age when Georgia fans got pretty upset when the Bulldogs lost. This was shortly before Vince Dooley came along to turn the program around. Until then, Georgians attended the games primarily to cheer the band and boo the football team. The Georgia Redcoat band was unanimously acclaimed as one of the best marching bands in the south. Frustrated by the ineptness of their football team, Georgia fans had enshrined the musicians as their pride and joy, the symbol of the school's superiority. It finally reached the point at which Georgians, on being asked how the game came out, replied exuberantly, "Terrific. The band was never better. The tubas turned in far and away their finest performances of the season."15 Before the big Georgia Tech game, the conductor of the Redcoats voiced his confidence to the press. "I know our fans are counting on us to shoot the works, and we won't let them down," he said. "We're primed, we are in top shape. Yesterday, in our final tune-up, the drummers sounded great, drilling to a metronome set at 135 beats a minute until the beat permeated right into their pores. I'm also pleased with our tuba section, all veterans. And don't overlook the 19 baritone saxes; they'll blow your brains out." Tongue in cheek, he said he was thinking of switching to the two- platoon system or unlimited substitutions; that way, his specialists would get in more marching time. As did all big-time football teams that had specialists who went into the game for only one specific play, the Georgia Redcoat band would have its specialists, too. "Not one of them would be able to play more than two notes and some of them only one," he explained. "But they'd be the very best performers in the country on their particular notes. " 16 Fortunately for Georgia diehards, the win-one-for-the- bandleader period was shortlived. Once Dooley arrived in 1964 and ironed out the satire, Red and Black supporters resumed buying season tickets in record numbers, with gleeful anticipation that happy days were here again. Ticket sales zoomed near 25,000, or about as many season tickets as could be offered for , with its 58,850 seats. That was the figure established as capacity. No one in Athens would bet his life on it because there were no turnstiles and nobody had ever bothered to count ticket stubs after a game. But they did have Joel Eaves, who doubled as Georgia's athletics director and official crowd guesser. Once, during an Ole Miss game at Athens, he was asked by a sportswriter how large the crowd was. Joel glanced around the stadium, casually studying the people, taking in the 300 or so lining the bridge between the two 20 campuses to the west. "I would say," he said at last, "there are 58,132." And that was the way it went into the official record book.17 As do all Southeastern Conference schools, Georgia has its self-proclaimed superfans, one of whom owned two restaurants in Atlanta. A business crisis in one of them forced him to miss the Bulldogs' thrilling 17-16 win over Maryland in the 1973 Peach Bowl. "When it reaches the point where one of my places is interfering with Georgia football, then that place has to go," he said. He wasn't kidding - he sold the restaurant. On the eve of the annual Georgia- Georgia Tech free-for-all, feelings run high and everybody is caught up in the emotion. The place to go in Atlanta is Manuel's Tavern, in a nondescript neighborhood but loaded with personality. A swarthy, lumpy figure of a man, Manuel Maloof is a Lebanese saloonkeeper, son of a Lebanese saloonkeeper, and a diehard Georgia fan. He was born to run a bar, it is said, specifically the kind where football patrons meet, talk and argue about football. However, on the eve of the intrastate rumble the activity in Manuel's watering hole is beyond conviviality. With the resounding strains of "Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech" and "Glory to Old Georgia" bouncing off the walls, Manuel would say, "These are the only nights I allow singing in the place. I allow it because I can't stop it."18 21 Down the years, the worst time for Manuel was after a Tech-Georgia game if Georgia lost. Manuel didn't know why, but he couldn't stand for Georgia to lose. If he and his patrons were in the tavern watching the game on television and anybody started cheering against Georgia, he threw the bums out. If Tech won the annual game, a picture of a Yellow Jacket went up over the carved wood bar; if Georgia won, a photo of a Bulldog. The following year, if the other team won, its fans then pulled down the picture and burned it ritualistically in the street. "But the most fun," Manuel once said, "is on the eve of the Tech-Georgia game." Everybody's building up steam and rehashed previous contests. There was an old man who used to play for Tech. He'd come in here and bask. That's all he was ever good for, being remembered. But Manuel's all-time pet was an oil tanker steward, a rabid Auburn booster. No matter where he was on the high seas, he always managed to get to Atlanta for the Auburn-Tech game, and afterward he woult > in Manuel's, yelling and raising the roof. Manuel recalls: I never in my life heard anybody holler "" like him. He's dead now, but I can still hear him ... One fall, the Auburn- Tech game was in the mud in Atlanta, and one of their players booted a to beat Tech. Lord God, we were all soaking wet. We came back to the tavern here, and Jimmy, the oil tanker steward, just assumed he could drown us all out with his "War Eagle" whoop. I just came back at him with my "Go Dogs"! Everybody was waiting to see who was going to stop hollering first. Well, that was the only time I ever saw Jimmy put down. And I was the one who did it.19 The origin of the nickname "War Eagle" goes back to Auburn's first football game in 1892 against Georgia, which, is the first recognized collegiate football game played in the South. According to the story, three Auburn students went to fight a war (presumably the Civil War) and only one returned - wounded and with an eagle he had picked up on the battle-field. Years later, supposedly, he took that same eagle to the first Auburn-Georgia contest and, as Auburn won, 1 0 -0 , the old eagle made a couple of warlike flaps- which even Auburn's staunchest supporters must admit was pretty good for a twenty-seven-year-old eagle. Auburn's impassioned rooters have been shouting "War-r-r Eagle!" ever since.20 Down in Southeast territory, college football long ago became a geographical, historical, or social event - sometimes all three. The fans down there have always had somebody they especially love to see whooped. There are all kinds of rivalries: intrastate, border, cross-town, and personal - all commonly classed as "natural" rivalries: Alabama versus Auburn, Georgia versus Georgia Tech, LSU versus Tulane, Tennessee versus Vanderbilt, and Ole Miss versus Mississippi State. In some cases you can even forget state lines, for they have been supplanted by something even more intriguing. Major enemies, on both the conference and national levels, have spread rapidly, and the typical fan's attention tends to focus on these contests in which the 23 competing teams often are rated in the top twenty. How they do against each other has a great deal to do with deciding who's number one in the nation. For example, Alabama and Tennessee would rather crush each other than just about anyone else. The rivalry is often the equivalent of a prison riot. lets us in on what the game meant to him: "I know, and our fans know, that any year Alabama doesn't beat Tennessee, I have done a sorry job."21 When the game is played at Knoxville, few rivalries can top the color and atmosphere surrounding the weekend. The fans flood in by air, boat, rail, auto, bicycle, and on foot. The jam-packed station wagons begin crawling into the parking areas like some sea serpent before noon on Saturday, the tailgates are let down, and out come the folding chairs, hammocks, tables, quilts, iceboxes, and jugs of martinis, whiskey flasks, and beer packs. Then the women will uncover huge baskets of fried chicken and sandwiches and deviled eggs. Couples play cards at card tables, read newspapers, or simply nap. Some listen to the noises of the mounting traffic confusion and make small wagers on how big the official attendance is likely to be .22 On one of those crackling fall days that helped to make college football so popular in the South, old SEC grads and their families assemble in school colors, and the glow of their faces illuminated the air as some of them hoarsely sang good old songs the way they were supposed to be sung, 24 with banjo backing and harmony on the favorite lines and nothing that needs plugging into an electric socket. Meanwhile, bright pennants dot the parking lots, and the students, beer cans in hand, stand arm in arm, howling their school cheers. George Mooney, the Voice of the Vols on radio in the 1950s, once said: No matter where I was broadcasting from, I found the fans in the South to be knowledgeable, fair - and, yes, loud and frenzied. They are very proud of their rich football heritage. And they are very proud of their schools, their teams and the deep pride that goes with being from the South. At Knoxville, anyway, and probably at all the other schools in the conference, football is a ritual, and season tickets are a prize. As a matter of fact, season tickets to Tennessee games are so hard to come by that they have even become a bone of contention in divorces. Whom do the ducats belong to - the husband or the wife? "Hell," one fellow going through divorce told me, "she can have the house, the car, and the savings account - but she can't have the season tickets to the Vol games." As I said, they take their football seriously down here.23 In terms of intrinsic interest, Southeastern Conference teams put on some of the best football shows in the country. Experts seldom disparage the abilities of most SEC teams. The athletes play some of the toughest and most exciting football anywhere. Southeastern representatives have two things going for them that make them fun to follow. First, there's a solid corps of athletes, most of whom are homegrown; and, second, the coaches are usually innovative, able, highly competitive. All of them believe as of Notre Dame believes: "I can't believe God put us on this earth to be ordinary. If winning isn't important, then don't keep score. Play for 60 minutes and then quit." , who coached at Vanderbilt forty years ago, said essentially the same thing: "The only thing worse than finishing second is to be lying on the desert alone with your back broken. Either way, nobody ever finds out about you."24 Everybody knows out about Paul "Bear" Bryant, who at the end of the 1980s was the winningest football coach in history. A large, menacing figure, big-jawed, and steel to the core, he was no mere celebrity, but something very special, honored or ennobled. The name Bear Bryant is known far and wide. Just how far was evidenced on a trip he once took with his wife to Europe in 1979. He thought he was the only American around, but someone stopped him on the street and asked, "Bear, what sort of team are you going to have at Alabama this year?" Once, on the lecture circuit in the South, Bryant found out what he meant to the state of Alabama. On a day off, a teacher friend of his asked him to talk to her class of second graders. When Bryant asked who could name the last three presidents of the United States, none of the students had the foggiest idea. Finally, Bryant asked, "How about Bear Bryant? Do you know who he is?" Everyone cheered and clapped and squealed and unanimously responded: "You are the king. "25 26 D. THE WAY IT WAS Years ago, when Jin Tatum, an old-line Southerner was coaching football at Cornell, the sensitive subject of race came up. When asked about Brud Holland, a black all- American end on his team, Tatum said, "I would rather not coach a black, but that big fellow is looking 'whiter' to me all the time."26 It goes without saying that the racist attitude of America, particularly in the South, proved to be a formidable obstacle for blacks both on and off the field. However, what tended to complicate and make the situation more firmly rooted was that this dehumanizing racism was nationalized on the wide-spread assumption that blacks were inherently physiologically and mentally inferior to whites. Blacks were not believed to be "full-fledged” human beings. A vicious cycle operated here as the beliefs of the general white population were confirmed as "racial truths" by many white scientists. The basic purports of most of their pseudo-scientific studies were that the mental endowments of blacks were considerably less than whites, and the human intelligence increases in direct proportion to the amount of Caucasian blood. Such "findings" reinforced the beliefs of whites, who for more than a century adhered to the racist ideology of Anglo-Saxon "manifest destiny" to reign over the darker people of the world. Consequently, in large measures, white America was under the influence of a racist mentality which declared their superiority. According to one historian, the Social Darwinian theory of evolution, with its physical implications, greatly influenced white social thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The nature of society, nation, or race was presumed to be a product of natural evolutionary fores. The evolutionary process was characterized by struggle and conflict in which the stronger, more advanced species would naturally triumph over the inferior weaker people. Hence, many whites used the "nature laws" of "Social Darwinism" to justify policies and practices of white supremacy.27 Consequently, while some black athletes were playing on integrated intercollegiate athletic teams in the North, Midwest and West, the South disdained from recognizing any racial qualities — social, intellectual, psychological or physiological — among black athletes as being compatible with "Deep South" football and least of all, the southern way of life. It is also true that during the SEC's infancy — when certain semblances of intellectual, social or economic gains would have been acquired by blacks participating in integrated sports — severe psychological concerns would have arisen among southern whites who experienced dark shadows being casted over their highly revered notions of white supremacy. As a result there weren't any black SEC football players until the late 1960s 28 when they began to leave their nark on football in the conference. Clearly on balance, the mentality of southern whites toward blacks in sports was a complex issue during the fledgling years of the SEC. Champ Pickens, an old-line Southerner who lived by the Old South's countless traditions and customs, may have summed it up best in 1975 when he said: You have to understand how football was in the South in those early times. Up North, they loved blacks as football players but despised them as individuals; down here, we loved blacks as individuals but we kept our distance from them as a race. Take it or leave it.28

E. THE ROLE OF BLACK COLLEGES There were no blacks attending white colleges and universities in the South before he turn of the century, and the possibility of their enrollment seemed remote. However, many black colleges were established during this period. Religious denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal, and the Colored Methodist Episcopal churches, founded black schools in the South such as Talladega, Claflin University, Lane College, , Allen University, Paine College, Shaw University, and the six institutions of the Atlanta University Center.29 The Freedman's Aid Society of the post-Civil War era was instrumental in assisting these institutions. In 1872, when the Freedman' s Aid Society was discontinued during the upheaval of the Reconstruction period, the survival of many of these schools became dependent upon philanthropists, many of them robber barons, their largesse stemming from

exploitation.30 However, many of the funds provided by various individuals were as sincerely given as the times permitted. George F. Peabody established the Peabody Education Fund in 1867, giving $3.5 million for general aid ' to education in the South. The fund benefitted many black schools, but, the trustees of the Peabody Fund also helped defeat the Civil Rights Bill of 1873.31 Most of the black colleges followed the principles Booker T. Washington laid down. In order for these schools to be maintained without constituting a threat to whites, their educational policies revolved principally around agricultural and industrial skills; if they held to that course they could be underwritten by white philanthropists. Schools such as Tennessee A&I State University (Agricultural and Mechanical) and Arkansas A&M College (Agricultural and Mechanical) were, and are today, typical of colleges whose names designated their central educational focus. Courses in agriculture, mechanical skills, and physical education were over-represented in the curricula. These colleges provided little in the way of intellectual substance for their students. White racist government officials and often the philanthropists themselves felt that black people were happiest singing and dancing, working with their hands, and playing games. And not only would blacks be happier thus occupied, but white racist could feel much safer. Fearing a loss of financial support and ignorance, black college administration and facilities operated these colleges in ways that conformed to racist desires. Subsequently, subjects dealing with abstract use of intellectual skills were scarcely represented in the curricula. The persistence of these deplorable educational conditions, over a hundred years after emancipation, would spur black college students on several predominantly black college campuses in the late 1960s to demand the de-emphasis of non-intellectual endeavors in favor of more appropriate educational

concerns.32 While black colleges in the South did not delve, or at most not deeply, into intellectual pursuits during the latter century, they did allow the development of the black athlete. Since the concept of integrating blacks into mass eduction was given little consideration, it was easy to laud the rise of athletics in black colleges throughout the South. Black colleges and universities organized their teams, and on Tuesday, December 27, 1892, the first black intercollegiate football game was played between Biddle University and Livingston College on the Livingstone campus in Salisbury, North Carolina. Biddle won, 4-0.33 Despite their educational shortcomings, or may be because of them, black colleges have provided an avenue for 31 athletic prominence for many blacks. While the majority of intercollegiate athletic participation for blacks took place at black colleges and universities, black athletes competed for white institutions since the late 1900. William Henry Lewis, the first black to be honored as an All-American, played center for Amherst in 1888. In 1905, Robert Marshall, a defensive end at the University of Minnesota, became the second black to be selected by Walter Camp.34 Many liberal northern, western, and mid-western colleges and universities had black sport participants almost since the beginning of intercollegiate athletics, although they were not always welcome to participate in all athletic activities available. Nevertheless, it was from these integrated teams that came many black athletes who were destined to achieve fame and fortune.35 Black colleges in the South also continued to produce their share of athletic greats, but as far as most of America's sports enthusiasts were concerned, unless an athlete achieved fame at one of the big-time, predominantly white institutions, he counted for little. In this regard, the attitudes of the black public hardly differed at all from those held by the white majority. Even the most avid black follower of sports in America would have been hard pressed to name the selections to the "Negro All-American" first teams during the years of the late 1940s to the middle 1950s, except for those few blacks who made it big in 32 professional athletics; but they were black sources of athletic legends. Paul Bunyon had vanished from white America with telegraphs and newspapers. But there was still room for legend in the black communities of the "Deep South" with Jim Crow segregation. The news traveled by words of mouth; out of East Texas, Alabama, and Georgia, into black communities most southern whites didn't know existed, into dirt-clogged streets and vacant lots where the grass was long time gone and black children didn't use the term "playground." Wright was coming to Jackson. Bowlegged, hands like baseball gloves, no telling how tall, how heavy, he caught passes onehanded and then ran wild. So people said. No none knew for sure in Jackson, Mississippi of 1954, in the autumn when the U.S. Supreme Court pondered the case of Brown vs. the of Education of Topeka. There was no word and no picture of Wright in the Jackson Daily Ledger. Such was the coverage of black college football then. But the conversation among blacks pounded like gutbucker blues in the streets: Prairie View was coming to play Jackson State, and Prairie View had the man called Wright. And Wright was...Charles Wright could have been eight feet tall, 400 pounds, for all the black kids of Jackson knew. He could have been 10 feet tall, 500 pounds, and the white kids of Jackson still would not have heard of him, or cared. There was one way to find out what Charles Wright looked 33 like: 9 0 to the game, but that cost a dollar. So the kids jammed against the chainlink fence. From a crumpled page that had blown loose from a program, they determined that

Charles Wright was 6 feet, 7 inches tall and weighted 245 pounds. They also discovered that he played end, that indeed his hands were as big as baseball gloves, that he certainly caught passes one-handed and surely ran wild. In the autumn when the supreme Court declared that separate was not equal in Southern and border state education, Charles Wright of all-black Prairie View ASM College — as near a piecemeal history can determine — caught 51 passes for 1,041 yards and 15 . Three years later, he would die of a heart attack without ever gaining acclaim outside the black community of the "Deep

South."36 What Charles Wright could have done as a member of the Georgia Bulldogs, the Louisiana State Tigers or was not a dream among the kids along the fences, not even a passing thought. In the autumn of Wright's death, their attention was drawn to John "Big Train" Moody, who led Morris Brown College to the mythical national black championship. Moody's feats, like Wright's, were not always chronicled, but apparently he routinely rushed for 250 yards per game, was an outstanding passer and could with either foot.37 Black colleges have existed in the "Deep South" since the late 1800s to educate freed slaves. They have struggled 34 as the higher-learning end of "separate but equal" with inadequate facilities, hand-me-down supplies and microscopic budgets. Since 1865, when the first black accredited institution of higher education "flung wide its doors for all to enter and partake of its offerings," most black colleges in the South had gathered helmets and shoes and played a few games of football against each other in obscurity for nearly a century.38 By 1941, black college football programs were gaining strength, although they were largely unnoticed by white southerners. That spring, Eddie Robinson became the at Grambling. The outbreak of World War II interrupted black college football in the South. At Grambling as well as other southern black colleges, football was practically nonexistence for nearly four years. In 1945, football commenced to rise again at black colleges and Jake Gaither accepted the coaching job at Florida A&M. National recognition dawned for black college football programs when the began drafting their players. Beginning with the NFL's drafting of Tank Younger from Grambling in 1949, according to one journalist,

"the heyday of black college football began."39 Seeing the performance of southern black players in the pros and having come to the conclusion that integrated intercollegiate athletic competition in the "Deep South" was inevitable by the mid-1960s, SEC schools, slowly began to 35 seize the opportunity to recruit talented home-grown black players. Invariably, this contributed to a mass exodus of athletic talent which was formerly the product of black colleges. This drain of their schools' athletic life-line did not go unnoticed by black college coaches in the South. Arthur MacAfee, at Morehouse College says loosely: We're lucky to get the third choice. If the black athlete is gifted mentally and physically, Georgia Tech or one of those real fine schools will get him. And if he as only football skills and average academic ability, then that middle school will get him. Then, if he's a great athlete and he's lacking in intellectual skills, then Grambling, Jackson State, or Tennessee State will get him. Now you come to the mediocre guy who doesn't have any athletic nor academic ability, he is the one that high school coaches want to peddle off on us. It'll be a long time, if ever, before black schools will get good black athletes. If he's good, the white schools will get him. The boys that we get will be the boys they don't want. I think he might as well forget looking for the blue chipper or super athlete among black players.40 John Martin of Fisk University, like many black college coaches, dislikes the exploitation he sees going on among blacks themselves and he laments the fact that the black athlete is unable or unwilling to recognize this fact. Martin commented: We see three things happening. Number one, blacks still can't say no to whites — that's number one. Number two, so many blacks still believe that if it's white, it's right, an number three, blacks are still so poor that they are susceptible to selling their birthrights — they just sell themselves out to whites. So those are your three basic 36

reasons that we're catching hell now getting the top black athletes. And the whites are running them characterwise. You see Herschel Walker and — the great ones— but twice as many blacks didn't make it out of school. It is only accidental, by chance, that we succeed (in white colleges). I tell those who go to white schools, you're not a student, you're an entertainer. You're entertaining the other students, alumni, and fans.41 Paralleling Martin's perceptions, Neil Andus wrote in : It is the large white universities that are siphoning off the rich black talent once recruited by Eddie Robinson at Grambling and John Merritt of Tennessee State. And, it is these same white schools, for the most part, which are helped by tougher integration codes, by junior college farm systems, red-shirting, bowl trips, and the esthetic campus dreams that disillusioned blacks later protest as evil and unjust.42 Eddie Robinson, though he joked about integration hurting his team during the late 1960s, isn't complaining. "There may be some things we can't offer at Grambling," said Robinson. "If a kid doesn't want to come to Grambling, I'm not going to tell him not to go to a predominantly white school. Let him go where he wants to go."43 For many black coaches in the South the talk of recruiting the best black athletes became difficult, if not impossible, as a result of desegregation. SEC institutions that once turned their backs on blacks are now getting the best black athletes for their own teams, with the aid of wealthy alumni, bloated budgets that approach the national debt in size, and, in some instances, illegal financial enticements. Meanwhile, black college coaches have been left on the sidelines, forgotten or largely ignored. While there is no denying that black coaches would like to get these same athletes themselves, as they did in the past, they won't. The assumption is that black coaches only want blacks, but that's not true and it puts black coaches in an embarrassing position. Black coaches don't want a white player just to say that they have one. They would have to make the team like everyone else. Chances are they'd have to be superior to make the squad. But they'll get a fair shake. Nevertheless, black college coaches couldn't beg, borrow or steal today's great athlete, but the white schools can. Black coaches in the South are endangered species, about to become as extinct as the dinosaur. And, in a real sense, the marginal black athlete has been phased out.44 According to Frank Leftwich, head football coach and athletic director at Tuskegee University, the recruiting of black athletes by predominantly white SEC schools caused the black institutions not to have the caliber of athletes they'd previously had overall. Consequently, this also led to a decline in the number of football players drafted by the NFL from predominantly black schools in the South. The most powerful of the Southern black conferences traditionally has been the Southwestern Athletic Conference, of which Grambling and Jackson State are members. In 1968, I 38 when only a few SEC schools recruited blacks, one SWAC member, Jackson State, had 11 of its players taken in the NFL draft. In 1979, after SEC recruiting of blacks had reached full force, only five SWAC players were drafted by the NFL. From Florida ASM, where forty-two of Gaither's players were drafted in a twelve-year stretch, only ten have been drafted in the nineteen years since his retirement.45 Despite the heavy desegregation of the SEC, and with complete desegregation - at least by law - of all public college campuses in the South, the black schools' football programs survived. Succinctly, Doug Porter, who coached at Grambling, Mississippi Valley State, and Howard University before coming to Fort Valley State College commented: Open recruiting hasn't caused the black schools to die. We've always been an adaptable race of people. We have learned to adjust, and to adapt to situations as we confront them, and till survive. The black coaches and the black institutions have been able to work a little harder with the youngsters. They've had to help refine their skills. The predominantly white schools have recruited only the very best black athletes. They never pursue the black athlete who took some years to develop. They went with the youngster who was highly accomplished and highly acclaimed in high school. The youngster who took some nurturing — some development — was not recruited. So this youngster became the source of a continuation of excellence for black schools. That's our youngster now. The black schools did not allow themselves to be eliminated by the fact that they were not able to get the most highly recruited youngster coming out of high school. They went another path. They 39

took the youngster who was perhaps not as accomplished, and worked with him and helped him to develop his potential. That has been the role of the black school academically, as well as athletically.46 In reality, it appears that the survival of football at black colleges in the South have no alternative except to follow the lead of Grambling State University and a few other black colleges that now play at least some of their "home" games in such distant cities as New York, Washington, Detroit, Chicago, , and Houston. Three advantages for doing so immediately come to mind: it provides opportunities to showcase the school's talent across the country, making it easier to recruit players. Two, it neutralizes recruiters from white universities who charge that only by attending their schools will black athletes get ample travel opportunities. Finally, it augments lagging income at black athletic events. The sentiments of Mrs. Alene Payton, who encouraged her son Walter to attend a black college because black colleges have been "helping blacks all along," will not be enough to repatriate the highly skilled black players at predominantly black Southern institutions. Even worst, the faint echoes throughout the black communities of the South that institutions which have been "helping blacks all along" have been too important to be shut down now, in the name of economics, are in fact, doing just that.67 40 So, black colleges in the south, which sprang from the seeds of a dual education system, now find themselves fighting on three fronts — against an attempt by some white institutions to sap their traditional supply of athletes and students; by efforts by some state officials to consolidate the historically black colleges with larger white institutions; and their own financial collapse. If black college fail to win on all counts, it is plausible that it may be of no importance whether the traditionally black college can continue to attract black football players. It is plausible because there may not be any black colleges left. CHAPTER II NOTES 1For a look at southern sporting attitudes and practices, see Allen Guttman, A Whole New Ball Game; An Interpretation of American Sports (Chappel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), pp. 35-50. The statement of football as an indicator of the southern mentality is a takeoff of cultural historian Jacques Barzun's statement on baseball's place in American culture. For Barzun's view see David Q. Voigt, America Through Baseball (Chicago: Nelson- Hall, 1976), p. 3. 2Jim Moore, "Transylvania Best Centre College," Lexington Transcript. 13 Apr. 1880, Sec. A, p. 2; Charles E. Martin, "I've Seen It All," Atlanta Advocate. 10 Sept. 1966, 19. For a general discussion of the rise of intercollegiate football, see Ronald A. Smith, Sports.& Freedom: The Rise of Big Time Intercollegiate Athletics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 67-98. 3Howard Liss, They've Changed The Game (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1973), p. 111. For a discussion of the shift from English rugby to , see David Reisman and Reuel Denney, "Football in America: A Study of Cultural Diffusion," American Quarterly. 3 (1951): 309-25. 4Ivan Kaye, History of College Football (Boston: Little-Brown, 1973), p. 138; Tom Perrin, Football: A College History (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1987), pp. 1-38. sKelvin Simmons, "Southeastern Conference Playbook," Southeastern Conference. 12 (August 1953): 41-56; Bobby Seizer, "Football Mystique," The Atlanta Constitution. 12 Oct. 1938, Sec. E, p. 5; Franklin Garrett, The History of Atlanta and Its Environs (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1954), pp. 584-85.

6Simmons, "Southeastern," pp. 41-55; Ralph McGill, "All In The Name of the Game," The Atlanta Journal. 16 Sept. 1947, Sec. E, p. 12.

7McGill, "All In The Name,” p. 12; Perrin, College History, pp. 1-38. See also, Kaye, College, pp. 102-57.

8Simmons, "Southeastern," pp. 41-56.

41 42

9Ibid., pp. 41-56. For a more detailed discussion of the Southeastern Conference, see John D. McCallum, That Was Football (New Yorks Charles Scribner, 1977), pp. 9-15. 10Furman Bisher, "Remembering Bear," The Atlanta Constitution. 21 Mar. 1983, Sec. D, p. 7.

11 John Vaught, Rebel Coach (Philadelphia: Sanders, 1970), p. 191. For a broader view of game-day activities in the Southeastern Conference, see John Bryson, Whistling Dixie (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1972), pp. 127-41.

12Garrett, History. p. 589; William B. Stokely, "Not Altogether Gentlemanly," Knoxville Times. 2 Oct. 1966, Sec. D, p. 13; Robert 0. Arnold, "What The Hell, Anyway," Athens Banner Herald. 6 Sept. 1913, Sec. A, p. 4. 13Donald Honig, "Playing For Keeps," Baton Rouge Biscavne. 7 Dec. 1969, Sec. C, p. 9. uIbid. 15Ed Hinton, "Transition To Dooley Wasn't Smooth," The Atlanta Journal. 8 Feb. 1989, sec. D, p. 11.

16Ibid. 17Charles H. Rightmire, "The Athenian," Southern Watchman. 7 (1980): 12-19; Jesse Outlar, Between The Hedges (Huntsville Ala.: strode, 1973), pp. 43-5. 18Michael Branch, "Tavern On The Grid," Atlanta Night Life. 131 (June 1987): 52.

19Ibid. 20Clyde Bolton, War Eagle: A Storv of Auburn Football (Huntsville, Ala.: Strode, 1973), p. 18.

21Bisher, "Remembering," p. 17. The intensity of the Alabama-Tennessee rivalry was clearly illustrated in the 1973 game in Birmingham. With Tennessee leading 21-0 at halftime, Alabama remained on the field practicing to the astonishment of a capacity crowd and eventually won the contest 42-21. 22Lewis Grizzard, "Jes* Ain't Gonna Make The Kickoff," The Atlanta Constitution. 16 Nov. 1985, Sec. D, p. 6 . For a more detailed account of the pomp and ceremony accompanying SEC football games, see John D. McCallum, Southeastern 43 Conference Football (Montgomery, Ala.: Gatway, 1983), pp. 79-151. ^George Levene, "Up and At Em Team,” The Knoxville Sentinel. 21 Oct. 1958, Sec. 4, p. 2. See also, Russ Bebb, The Bio Orange: A Storv of Tennessee Football (Huntsville, Ala.: Strode, 1973), pp. 60-66. 24Samuel Chandler, "Irish Eyes Are Smiling Again," USA Today. 9 Jan. 1989, Sec. C, p. 2; Wyatt Caraway, "Preserving The Past," Prospectus. 9 (Spring 1981): 33.

25Bisher, "Remembering," p. 17. 26Art Rust, History of The Black Athlete (Philadelphia; Saunders, 1968), p. 117. For a general discussion of white America's attitude toward the black athlete before the turn of the century, see Art Rust, Get That Nigger Off The Field (New York: Delaconte, 1976), pp. 45-213; Janet Bruce, The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985), pp. 30-119. 27Jerome Holland, Black Opportunity (New York: MacMillian, 1969), p. 203; John Hope Franklin, From Slavery To Freedom (New York: Knopf, 1980), p. 365; Talcott Parsons, "The Triumph of White Supremacy," Nearo Digest. 5 (Summer 1957): 109. Hortense Powermaker, After Freedom: A Cultural Study In The Deep South (New York: Viking, 1939), p. 23; Lewis F. Carter, "Racial-Carte Hypogamy: A Sociological Myth," Phylon. 29 (1970): 349-52; Andrew Billingsley, "Black Americans and White Social Science," Journal of Social Issues. 26 (1970): 127-42. See also, David Allison and Burleigh Gardner, "Black Culture and Liberal Sociology," Berkeley Journal of Sociology. 15 (1969): 164-83. 28Lewis Grizzard, "Long As They Play Good on Saturday," The Atlanta Journal. 16 July 1986, Sec. A, p. 1. 29James P. Brawley, A Century of Methodist Concern (New York: Harper and Row, 1983), p. 37. See also, Margaret Price, "The Search For Leadership," Journal of Nearo History. 10 (1947):64-96. For additional information on the African Methodist Episcopal and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Churches, see Fisk African Studies, volumes 1 and 2 edited by Oric Bates. There studies are important for their treatment of the early churches concern with the education of freedmen. 30George W. Williams, "Negro Communal Education In America," Journal of Nearo History. 23 (1938): 212. For an extensive discussion of attitudes toward race and education in America between 1815 and 1959, see Emersen D. Fite, The 44 Leonard's Spots (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), pp. 77-159; idem; "The Racial Practices of Organized Education,” in Herbert Hill, ed., Unearthing Seeds of Fire The Idea of Highlander (Winston Salem, N.C.: John F. Blair, 1975), pp. 72-3.

31Brawley, Century, p. 45. 32Robert Hayden, The New Negro (New York: Athenum, 1980), pp. 385-415, August Meier, "Studies In Negro Life: An Education of Color," Georgia Historical Quarterly. 16 (1976): 18-31. See also, Gordon W. Sweet, Black Colleges In The South: From Tragedy To Promise (Atlanta: Great South, 1971), pp. 5-26.

33Rust, Black Athlete, p. 224. For an indepth description of this historic event and its impact upon the growth and expansion of football in America's black colleges, see Ocania Chalk, Black College Snort (New York: Dodd-Mead, 1976), pp. 197-285. ^Ibid.; Perrin, College History, p. 365.

35Rust, Black Athlete, pp. 223-93. See also, Chalk, Black College, pp. 140-97; Lynn Norment, "Memorial Events In Black Sports," Ebonv. 18 (Oct. 1952): 120-28. ^Ernest Reese, "Black Athletic Legend," The Atlanta Constitution. 7 July 1986, Sec. C, p. 29. Substantive materials pertaining to the athletic careers of Charles Wright can be found in the archives at Prairie Viev; A&M University. This material mainly consist of photographs, program information, and articles in the Tiger's Path, a campus newspaper.

37Reese, "Black," p. 29; Booker T. Harvey, "The Morris Brown Wolverines," Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. 6 (Jan. 1964): 57-61. Also of great merit in covering the story of John Moody is Garrett, Atlanta, pp. 528-29. MRust, Black Athlete, pp. 223-45; Chalk, Black College, pp. 140-97. See also Jack Olsen, The Black Athlete: A Shameful Storv (New York: Time-Life, 1968), pp. 7-118.

39Chalk, Black College, pp. 140-97; See also, O.K. Davis, Grambling's Gridiron Glorv (Ruston, La.: M&M,, 1983), pp. 45-51; George E. Curry, Jake Gaither: America's Most Famous Black Coach (New York: Dodd-Mead, 1977), pp. 123-39. *°Arthur MacAfee, Interview, Atlanta, Ga., 9 Mar. 1987. 45

41 John Martin, Interview, Atlanta, Ga., 23 Apr. 1987. 42Neil Andus, "A Rising Sorrow,” The New York Times. 11 Nov. 1969, Sec. F, p. 4. 43Compiled from notes of a speech given by Eddie Robinson at the Extra Point Club's Award Banquet, Atlanta, Ga., 28 Apr. 1982. ^Leonidas Epps, Interview, Atlanta, Ga., 3 Dec. 1986. 45Jake Gaither, Interview, Tallahassee, FI., 17 Nov. 1986. See also, Curry, Jake Gaither, pp. 123-39; Harvey, "Morris Brown," pp. 116-20; David, Gramblina's. pp. 45-51. 46Doug Porter, Interview, Fort Valley, Ga., 11 Dec. 1986. 47Keith S. Thomas, "Black Colleges: Tradition In Transition,” The Atlanta Constitution. 1 Sept. 1987, Sec. B, p. 1; Dick Williams, "Schools Map Out Changes To Survive," The Atlanta Constitution. 7 July 1989, Sec. B, p. 4. CHAPTER III DESEGREGATING THE HOLY DAY

A. SATURDAY IS THE HOLY DAY Deep in the evening of October 19, 1934, Bill Alexander, the Georgia Tech football coach, enjoyed a nip of whiskey. It had nothing to do with the Michigan frost outside. Georgia Tech, a member of the one-year old Southeastern Conference, had come to Ann Arbor to play Michigan, but the opponents, in the mildest terminology of Georgia's white citizenry at the time, "had a colored boy." This was a big problem. Intercollegiate athletic teams of the "Deep South" were completely segregated and did not compete against integrated opponents. Alexander reminded Fielding Yost, Michigan's athletic director, "we simply cannot play. Our people at home won't stand for it. " 1 West Virginian born Yost shared many of the southern attitudes towards blacks. During his tenure as Michigan's football coach he had no black players and their absence was by design. When then athletic director Yost scheduled the game with Tech, the complications created by the presence of right end Willis Ward, a stellar athlete who starred in both football and , may not have been broached. However, the potential problem that derived from southern 46 47 institutions refusing to play against blacks was discussed for several months before the contest. Michigan had intended to withhold Ward from the game, but students in Michigan's Young Communist League threatened a massive sit- down on the field to block the game if Ward was withheld. On Saturday morning, Yost and Alexander announced that Ward had "volunteered" to sit out the game and Tech reciprocated by withholding Hoot Gibson its own star right end. The combination of this deal, bad weather and security guards quelled the demonstrations. Alexander believed that had Tech played against Ward, the rednecks would have been at the terminal station in Atlanta and they would have been bitter. "What they would have called us or done to us, I cannot imagine."2 Fifty years after the Alexander-Yost crisis at Ann Arbor, Auburn Coach stood at a press conference on the eve of the 1984 Sugar against the Michigan Wolverines. Dye was asked about the differences between SEC and "Big 10" teams. With pride in his tone, he said, "Our teams are a little more black." The evidence seems to support Dye's contention. While a third of Michigan's players were black, 46 percent of Auburn's roster was black. Entering the 1985 season, blacks constituted nearly half of the SEC football players, and leading black players such as Vincent "Bo" Jackson were heroes in their respective institutions.3 48 The changing social complexion of SEC and southern football was rooted in the sit-ins, the freedom rides, clenched fists, the "Afro," the down of Medgar Evers, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the swirling smoke of burning buildings, and the sharp ugly sound of gunfire within blocks of the White House. Dye's prime-time performance was merely a by-product of "The Black Revolution" for Civil Rights which had commenced decades earlier; when institutional segregation started coming apart and coming together as a result of a historical stance for equality and justice by a slim woman of forty- two, gentle and genteelly dressed and wearing rimless glasses. In 1955, twenty-nine years prior to Auburn becoming a "little more black," a mere forty-six miles from the "loveliest village on the plains" in Montgomery, Alabama, Mrs. Rosa Parks stood waiting for the Cleveland Avenue bus to take her home to the black section of Montgomery. She had worked hard all day sewing dresses in a downtown department store. Now she was tired. Her feet hurt. The bus finally came along and Mrs. Parks got on. The black section in the back was filled. It was against the law in Alabama for blacks to sit in the seats reserved for whites up front. So Mrs. Parks found a seat in the "neutral zone" where blacks were allowed to sit as long as no white people were left standing. A stop or two later, more white passengers boarded the bus. Four were left 49 without seats. The driver ordered Mrs. Parks and three other blacks to give up their places. The others did. Mrs. Parks knew that it was against the law for a black to refuse to obey a bus driver, but weary and footsore, she did not budge. So the driver got off and called the police. Mrs. Parks was arrested and taken to jail. The refusal of Mrs. Parks to waive her constitutional right to equal assess to public transportation led to the famous "Montgomery Bus Boycott,” an initial thrust in the movement for civil rights and gave birth to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a non-violent protest organization, led by a local minister, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Her soft "no" sparked a movement that spread from coast to coast. It started in Montgomery, but its roots go back in our history.4 Across the South, whites and blacks were separated in street-cars, steamboats, and taxi cabs. Separate coaches on trains were followed by separate waiting rooms and ticket windows. Sheriffs assigned whites to one side of a courtroom and blacks to the other, and provided separate Bibles for witnesses of the two races to swear on. Whites and blacks were forbidden to mingle in theaters and concert halls. Circuses had "colored" entrances. Ball parks had separate bleachers and white and black teams were not allowed to play against each other. Laws required separate 50 "white" and "colored" bars, separate hotels and restaurants, separate orphanages, old-age homes, and insane asylums. Prisoners were separated in jails and the sick in hospitals. Only "colored" ambulances were allowed to pick up "colored" patients. Only "colored" nurses took care of them. At death they were carried off in a "colored" hearse and buried in a colored cemetery. Trees in city parks sprouted signs: No Negroes Allowed. Drinking fountains in village squares had separate WHITE and COLORED faucets. WHITE ONLY was painted on windows of barber shops, laundries, and billiard parlors. Office buildings had two elevators, one labeled PASSENGERS, the other FOR FREIGHT and NEGROES. In hundreds of towns throughout the South stands a tree where limbs, tradition has it, have supported the death agony of blacks at the end of a rope. There was very little or no justice for blacks in such places. For whites, there was consideration determined by social status; for blacks these whimsical sanctions were ruled by affection, racism and fear. The minority race, which frequently outnumbered the white population, did not vote, except for a handful of "respectable" blacks who were believed to be safely housebroken. Literally, Black Americans survived from one generation to the next by feigning spinelessness and stupidity.5 If the Civil Rights Movement was going to come, it was extremely unlikely that it was going to come in the tidily and precisely dressed Rosa Parks. As a matter of fact, nothing was further from Rosa Parks' mind. Although she was surrounded by history and historical artifacts — slaves had been auctioned in the square across the street from the bus stop and it was at the Exchange Hotel in the square that the Confederacy had its beginning — Rosa Parks was not consumed by history but by the tedium of survival in the Jim Crow South. This was a history engraved in her bones and viscera, but she would not accept the logistics of Jim Crow travel. The woman and the hour had come together. There then occurred one of those little vignettes that sometimes change the course of history, and her decision to remain seated and the convergence of a number of historical forces sealed the death warrant of the Jim Crow South.6 In the twelve years and four months of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s leadership of the civil Rights Movement, Black Americans achieved more genuine freedom and substantive reform than during the previous three centuries. The Civil Rights Movement desegregated public facilities and schools, and commenced to eradicate racism in the social, political and economic lives of Black Americans. When the movement began in 1955, there were fewer than 50 black elected officials in the entire nation; today, there are more than 6,000 black elected officials. It is quite plausible that number of elected black public officials is indicative of a continuing desire to build bridges of knowledge and 52 understanding between whites and black America, while sowing the seeds of a new national unity for constructive social change. Clearly, the Civil Rights Movement has not eradicated racism or has it silenced hatred or bigotry. Instead, this vibrant legacy of nonviolent social change will continue to inspire those who seek justice and equality to share with humanity. If for no other reason than superiority among "Deep South" football teams, the number of black players are indicative of that premise.7 While changes in Southern football could not have started without the Civil Rights Movement, neither could it have continued on the strength of this movement alone. Many southerners, according to former Mississippi Governor William Winter, faced with a choice between their passion for football and their passion for racism, have held their football foremost. "I have seen people with almost irreconcilable racial opinions display great enthusiasm over black athletes on their favorite teams," says Winter. He recognizes that racism and racists still exists, but he claims that "football and the performance of black athletes have shamed a lot of people into not being overt racists." Winter also contends that in terms of race relations, "athletics in general have contributed immeasurable to reducing tensions and putting people on a common ground. And since football is the pre-eminent sport in the South, it has had a greater impact."8 53 Even as his and other teams from the predominantly black colleges of the South labored almost unpublicized, Marino Casern, coach at Alcorn State in Norman, Mississippi, stated: "In the East, college football is a cultural exercise. On the West Cost, it is a tourist attraction. In the Midwest, it is cannibalism. But in the South it is religion, and Saturday is the holy day."9 The mentality that is the root of the white Southerner's lust for football was perceived by the late Lenny Bruce, the New York coinedian-philosopher of the 1960s. "For 100 years, we have at least claimed to try to improve conditions for the black Southerner," he said of the nation. "But the white Southerners, we have kicked in the ass since the Civil War."10 The philosophical beliefs of Bruce and other northerners served as the fuel that perpetually ignited the Southerner's contention that the Civil War was infinite. It would be fought forever and not as a civil cause for nationalism, but until the South was declared the winner. What was needed to achieve this declaration was a new adversarial strategy and "Deep South” football became somewhat of a military maneuver that was intended to tilt the battlefield toward the South. The game became a battle line and secret plan of attack, including the coordinated efforts of linemen as the infantry, running backs as the cavalry, forward passing as artillery.11 54 It was not the exclusive domains of the backward ways of the South that impeded its immediate advance into the technological age. The culprit is often associated with the implication and popularity of football. It has been said that farming the mole hills of Mississippi gave way to a preoccupation with the forthcoming gridlock in the red clay of Georgia. The border scrimmages were perceived of as regional battles of marital importance in preparing to "offense and defense" Sherman's march North from Savannah. No region took more deeply to these military characteristics than the South, the only region of America to have known defeat and devastation in war, and which continued to feel scorned as ignorant and backward by the rest of the nation. The deeper the poverty of the Southern state, it seemed, the more the blame was placed on the Civil War and the ensuing Reconstruction and the deeper the passion ran for football. In the town square of Oxford, home of the University of Mississippi, a Confederate monument was erected in 1907. The simple inscription was, "They gave their lives in a just and holy cause." It was around this monument that the most important pep rallies were held on the evening before the football team, the Rebels, left to fight for the dignity of Mississippi. Emotions were similar throughout the Southern states. If their states per capita incomes and educational levels were at the bottom of the national scale, the embarrassment was eased when the football teams went to the 55 top of the polls. This pattern continues even in 1985. In the Poll at the season's outset, five SEC teams were ranked in the "Top 20." In average educational level, no Southern states were in the top 20, and in per capita income only Florida was among the top 20.12 In stark contrast to the Southerner's identity crisis with the Civil War, football has provided the South with a sense of "Southern style" racial tolerance for nearly a quarter century. The hues and cries of black and white fans who gather in Jacksonville's Gator Bowl each November to witness the Georgia-Florida football game, billed as the world's largest cocktail party, are of one voice, one movement, one cause, and that neither Georgia nor Florida fans want to leave with a lost. Traditionally, during a football season, an entire state could vent its festering resentment either on the intrusive North or on its neighboring states, depending on the game. In Atlanta, the joke went, "The only good thing about Alabama is that it keeps the great state of Georgia from having to sit next to Mississippi." In Alabama, they said, "Thank God for Mississippi. If it were not for them, we would be on the bottom of everything. Mississippi, cornered, could only turn and snarl at Alagoddambama."13

B. DIXIE AND FRENZY The intraregional wars were wonderful among the little nations of Georgia Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Florida, but the most emotionally fulfilling battles southerners fought were against Northern invaders such as Ohio State, Michigan or Notre Dame. Those were the occasions when Confederate flags were waved in frenzy and when "Dixie" was played the loudest. Historian David Sansing said: "Each time Ole Miss went out to play, it was (to the fans) the charge of the Confederate Gray up Cemetery Ridge all over again."14 Historian James Cobb, Sansing's colleague at the University of Mississippi's Institute of Southern Studies, which specializes in the historical causes of Southern attitudes, objects to the playing of "Dixie" at football games today as an affront to blacks. Nevertheless, he adds that the response of white Southerners to "Dixie" is so complex that he certainly wouldn't categorize a positive reaction to "Dixie" as a racist phenomenon.15 While there may be a measurable amount of merit in Cobb's assessment in its application to a minority of Southern whites, for blacks the playing of "Dixie" is not a summoning of football frenzy among faithful friends of the South. It is a song of the plantation mentality of the "Old South," an echo from an oppressive era that continuously reminds them of their subservient past and contemporarily beckons them back to the barge and bale. Consequently, it remains a racist entity which blacks, particularly southern blacks, have contested since the days of Reconstruction. But the South continues to resist. And "Dixie" with all of its complexities is I i 57 quite shallow in its impact upon contemporary "Deep South" football; except that it has become a political one.16 On April 17, 1985, Georgia governor, Joe Frank Harris, told the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that he would "discourage" any change in Georgia's state flag and the playing of "Dixie." In a letter to Earl T. Shinhoster, Regional Director of the NAACP, Harris considered the request by the civil rights organization as an overreaction to recent racial events such as the one in Forsyth County.17 The Southeast region of the NAACP, meeting March 5-7 in Greenville, South Carolina, adopted a resolution calling on the states of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi to abandon use of their present state flags and the playing of "Dixie" at state supported or sponsored functions. It declared that the "Confederate Flag" and "Dixie" were symbols of divisiveness, racial animosity and an insult to black people throughout the South. In a similar manner, the exploitation complaints of present and former black athletes at "Deep South" schools tend to suggest that the playing of "Dixie" are ugly words portraying black sharecroppers toiling in the cotton fields. Black athletes also perceive its implication as being bound-up with a kind of prejudice that is only several degrees removed from school segregation and white- only water fountains. According to Sansing, even worst, the playing of "Dixie" and the "Confederate Flag" are subtler 58 forms of racism growing out of a state of mind that does not even recognize itself as prejudice. For example, after Georgia, with black hero, Herschel Walker, defeated Notre Dame to win the 1980 National Championship, an old Bulldog fan with deep understanding of his people said, "the pride that came yesterday has to do with emotions that go all the way back to 1865." He saw no conflict between his Confederate flag and the pride in a black hero.18

C. BREACHING THE CUSTOM But on the night of October 19, 1934, as Bill Alexander pondered and sipped his whiskey in Ann Arbor, the first light of dilemma fell on the Southern passion for football. With the growth of southern football in the first several decades of the twentieth century problems emerged in playing the Northern teams the home folks loved to beat. At least three times before, Northern teams had withheld black players from games with Southern teams, obeying "The Custom." Michigan obliged Vanderbilt in 1922; New York University had consented to Georgia in 1929; and Boston College catered to Clemson in 1939. However, in 1940, 2,000 New York University students and sympathizers launched a massive protest against the University's administration and athletic program, demanding that it oppose the custom. The protest centered around the issue of discrimination against Leonard Bates, a black star on the NYU football team. NYU was scheduled to play the , which 59 similar to most teams in the South, southwest, and Southeast, drew a staunch color-line against interracial sporting events. Bates would have to stay behind. On October 18, 1940, the NYU protesters picketed the administration building. They demanded that Bates be allowed to play in the game. The NYU protest served notice on the intercollegiate sports world that this form of discrimination would no longer be tolerated. Similar protest occurred at Harvard, Rutgers, Holy Cross, Boston University and the University of Maryland.19 In the years immediately following World War II significant changes occurred in at least northern attitudes towards black involvement in sport. The shifting perception was the product of a host of interacting influences: the rise of New Deal liberalism; America's involvement in World War II, especially the battle against racist Nazi forces; the ongoing efforts of black leaders, organizations and the press in opposing discriminatory policies; the emergence of the Cold War and the rise of black African nations; and the sporting success of black athletes such as Joe Louis and Jesse Owens.20 While Jackie Robinson's integration of was the most symbolic and important expression of the changing social and sporting climate, there was simultaneously an effort to break down the barriers to black participation in collegiate sport at predominately white institutions of higher learning. Precisely who was the first black to participate in an intercollegiate football game is uncertain. Among the first was W.T.S. Jackson who played for Amherst College in 1889, three years prior to the first all-black intercollegiate football contest. By 1915, it was estimated that more than 200 black players were members of college teams, including at Syracuse University, Ohio State, Purdue, Ohio University, Rutgers, Penn State, UCLA, Southern Cal, Oregon, Iowa, Michigan, and Illinois. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be until the post-World War II era when changes in the racial climate and the search for new source of athletic talent that intercollegiate football programs began to recruit blacks in any significant number.21 The years following World War II also saw northern colleges increasingly unwilling to accommodate to the custom. This was reflected when Nevada University canceled a scheduled game with Mississippi College in 1946 rather than leave a black player at home. In the same year State College also canceled a game with the University of for the same reason. A change in attitude of at least one southern school was also shown when in 1947, the permitted Chester Pierce, a black at Harvard, to stay in the university dormitory when Harvard played Virginia in Charlottesville, besides permitting him to play in the game. Two blacks, Wally Triplett and Dennis Hoggard, played for Penn State against Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1947 without incident. In 1948, the University of competed in its first "integrated" football contest and two years later black players played against a white team in Florida for the first time in that state's history when the University of Iowa met the University of Miami in the Orange Bowl. In 1954, the first integrated football game ever played in Tennessee occurred without incident when Fisk University played Taylor University of Indiana in Nashville. On the other hand, Lafayette College in 1948 turned down an invitation to the Sun Bowl in El Paso because of a ban on a black player. The same year, the Washington County, Maryland, Board of Education forced Hagerstown Junior College to cancel its game with Shippenburg State Teachers College of Pennsylvania because of a black on the latter school's team. However, in 1954, Hinds Junior College of Jackson, Mississippi defeated Bakersfield () Junior College who had one black player, in the Junior . In a similar manner, separationist law and racism in interracial athletic competition notwithstanding, Jones County Junior College of Elisville, Mississippi played Compton (California) Junior College with three black players on its team in the 1955 Junior .22 By this time, a Southern school was going to suffer because of "The Custom," Alexander knew. Because of this business of radicals, Michigan had been forced into 62 resisting "The Custom" more than usual. The benching of Hoot Gibson in reciprocation for withholding Willis Ward did, Alexander would say later, cost Georgia Tech the game. Gibson, Alexander felt, would easily have stopped Michigan's only touchdown run in a 9-2 Wolverine victory.23 From the Michigan press box was dispatched the suggestion/prophesy of an Atlanta Constitution sportswriter, Ralph McGill, who decades later would become a mountainous voice of moderation in the South as that newspaper's editor during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. "Until the time-honored custom is honored more in breach than in observation," McGill wrote, "it might be well for Southern and Northern teams to avoid scheduling game when there is any possibility of racial friction."24 McGill's language was subtle, as the times in "the Deep south" necessitated. But he looked forward to the day when "the breach," the breaking of the custom, would be more popular than the keeping. Not until 21 years later would "the breach" begin and a group of southern whites demonstrate publicly for the first time that their passion for football outweighed their passion for segregation. As late as the mid-1950s, "The Gentlemen's Agreement" — that no Southern school would play a football game against a team that included blacks — was the pervasive guideline for SEC coaches. Yet, the coaches grew uncomfortable with it. Bobby Dodd, who had been present as 63 a 26 year old assistant coach during Alexander's dilemma, was now head coach at Georgia Tech. He recalled that this time SEC members couldn't go to a bowl game unless they played other Southern teams. East, West, and Midwest teams all had black players by then. The feeling among SEC coaches was that "somebody has got to break the color line.25

D. A LANDMARK BOWL In December of 1955, the University of Pittsburgh, which had one black player, Bobby Grier, had accepted a bid to play in the in New Orleans. The other bid was extended to Georgia Tech. Dodd asked and received permission from his players and the school's administration to accept the offer. ' Now came the hard part. Dodd had to deal with the segregationist politicians and their constituencies to let them go. He contacted Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin. Dodd recalls, he told me, Bobby, I can't come out publicly and support this, but you go ahead and do it. I'll be in New Orleans watching. However, Griffin subsequently failed to support Dodd and openly opposed Tech's Sugar Bowl appearance and publicly tried to block it.26 A member of the Georgia Board of Regents, R.V. Harris, and eight other board members urged that Georgia Tech not play the game. Griffin wired the board his opinion that Georgia teams should be barred from playing against teams 64 using Negroes, but Georgia Tech's President Blake R. Van Lees said his school would play Pittsburgh whether the Negro was in the lineup or not. Pittsburgh's Acting Chancellor Charles Mutting said the University would use Grier and permit him to live with the team in New Orleans. Georgia Tech students staged a demonstration against Governor Griffin, and hanged him in effigy. The Board of Regents then voted 14 to 1 to permit the team to play, but adopted a resolution barring Georgia teams from future post-season games in the South if segregation was not observed.27 The Sugar Bowl game was played on January 2 1956, in New Orleans with Grier in the Pittsburgh lineup. Tech won the game 7-0; the sole touchdown scored was set up, ironically, on a pass interference call against Grier. Some sports writers covering the game felt that this critical penalty was unfair, but game officials denied any racial bias behind the penalty. Otherwise the game was without incident.28 A young, liberal Princeton student from Mississippi was "sick to my stomach" at the jubilation expressed by the white Southern throngs at Grier's "mistake." "They loved it," said Hodding Carter, III, who later gained national acclaim as a liberal newspaper editor in Mississippi during the bloodiest days of the Civil Rights Movement.29 Tremors went throughout the "Deep South." The highly successful and independent Dodd was not popular in other 65 southern states. In Jackson, Mississippi, newspaper columnists spoke of his "betrayal of the South."30 The 1956 Sugar Bowl incident started a series of legislative maneuvers in the State of Louisiana to prevent further integrated sports contests. Three years prior to the 1956 Sugar Bowl, Louisiana State Senator B.H. Rogers of Grand Cane introduced a bill which would have prohibited white and black men from competing together in sports where admission was charged. By a voice-vote, the bill was affirmed. In April, 1956, the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors supported a recommendation made by board member J. Stewart Slack of Shreveport, executive of the White Citizens Council Association of Louisiana, to ban all integrated athletic events for Louisiana State teams at home or away.31 The supervisors voted to support Slack's recommendation to ban athletes from participating in integrated athletic events on or off the campus. As a direct result of the vote, another state college, Louisiana Technological Institute, immediately withdrew from negotiations for a football game with the United States Air Force Academy because the Academy would not guarantee to field an all- white team. Further racial problems in sports competition in Louisiana were created by the presence of blacks on two clubs in the Evangeline League, a minor baseball league with teams in Louisiana and Texas. On April 4, 1956, Niles David, the Recreation Commissioner of East Baton Rouge Parish, said visiting Evangeline League teams would not be allowed to use black players in Baton Rouge city-owned baseball parks. Paralleling the South's effort to maintain segregation in sports, an equal effort was being applied to blunt the Civil Rights Movement. In Sunflower County, Louisiana, a leader of the White Citizens Council stated: "We intend to make it difficult, if not impossible for a Negro who advocates desegregation to find a job and hold a job, get credit, or receive a mortgage." Throughout the South, where White Citizens Councils were locate in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana, two voices were heard. One, the Civil Rights Movement said NOW. The other, the White Citizens Council said NEVER.32 When blacks signed petitions to school boards, council members bought advertising space in local papers to print their names and addresses. The signers were fired from their jobs, evicted from their homes and refused credit at banks and stores. A black dentist who became a member of the local NAACP had his automobile insurance suddenly canceled. Wholesalers refused to supply a black gas station owner after he signed a school petition. A black plumber who was put out of business stopped to buy a loaf of bread. Glaring at him, the grocer said, "That will cost you a dollar." By 1955, the NAACP had to open a special account in a black-owned bank in Atlanta to lend money to families 67 who were penalized for trying to get a better education for their children.33 The Councils were only a part of the story. During the first years after the 1954 Supreme Court desegregation ruling, southern legislatures passed 200 new segregation laws. Virginia called for "massive resistance." Alabama declared the decision "null, , and of no effect." Mississippi set up a state "Sovereignty Commission" to prohibit compliance with the integration decision and Georgia made it a felony "for any school official to spend tax money for public schools in which the races were mixed." Behind the lawmakers stood the Ku Klux Klan and a host of new groups - the Southern Association of Red Shirts, Knights of the White Christians, White America, Inc., and the Christian Civil League. They were ready with kerosene- soaked crosses, dynamite sticks and guns if all else failed to contain the Civil Rights Movement.34 While the outbreak of scrimmages for civil liberties throughout the South was gradually eroding the barriers of racial discrimination, Louisiana's problems with segregation in sports resulted in the state legislature's approval in July, 1956, of a bill banning all further integrated athletic competition in the state. Protest were heard from many sources, including the Mid-Winter Sports Association, promoters of the Sugar Bowl athletic events.35 The series of Louisiana bills prohibiting integrated athletic events ended a program which Loyola University of New Orleans had begun in 1954, when it ended segregation among players and audiences at its games. Loyola had played against several teams with blacks in the 1955-56 basketball season both in their opponents' gymnasiums and in its own gymnasium, with only one unfortunate incident. In 1956, while Loyola was playing Bradley University, one of Bradley's players, a black, became incensed at a decision of the referee and used profane language and vulgar gestures toward the officials, the other team, and the spectators. This incident attracted nationwide attention, but three days later Loyola played the University of San Francisco, with four blacks on its team, including the legendary Bill Russell, in the same gymnasium, and without incident.36 The reactions of other southern states to integrated sports paralleled that of Louisiana's. When Alabama Governor Roy Harris, a staunch segregationist, learned that Tech was about to play Pittsburgh, he ordered the Board of Regents to meet for the purpose of prohibiting football teams in the white colleges of the University System from playing teams which had black members. The board acknowledged Harris' demand for a ban on contests with integrated teams and passed a resolution which effectively created yet another elaboration on the byzantine customs accompanying segregation. After declaring that the decision 6 9 had been reached only after "prayerful consideration, thoughtful deliberation and careful study,” the board commended Governor Harris for his courageous stand in upholding his oath as governor and for his inspiring leadership in protecting "the sacred institution of our people." The Regents applauded Harris for putting "conscious and principle above all other considerations" and pledged the "full and continuing" support of the board.37 In 1957, an incident involving the football team prompted a statewide discussion of the limits of segregation. A successful campaign in the fall of 1957 had earned Tennessee a bid to play against Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. More than three thousand Tennessee students reacted violently to the suggestion that their team might be prevented from playing a bowl game marched on the governor's mansion and the state capitol to demonstrate their displeasure. A large group of students at the university also demonstrated against the "outrage," perhaps showing more concern over gubernatorial interference in athletic affairs than interest in desegregation.38 When the Tennessee students marched on the governor's mansion, a state representative who lived near the mansion attempted to quell the disturbance and to mediate the dispute brewing between the students and the police called to protect the governor. The governor reported that the demonstrations had not changed his mind, but several days later one of his spokesman announced that there would be no further objection to a Tennessee team playing an integrated team in the Orange Bowl. Concurrently, Robert Arnold, Chairman of the University System, disclaimed authority to interfere with integrated competition on the grounds that the Tennessee Athletic Association was a separate entity outside the purview of the board. Other regents like Charles Block of Nashville and David Rice of Knoxville also counseled caution, perhaps with memories of previous instances of state interference in regent's affairs. However, only one board member, Stephen Popewell of Johnson City, publicly argued that Tennessee should be permitted to play.39 But the color line was broken. In 1957, the University of Georgia sent its football team to play Michigan against black players. "What they were saying was that race was not as important as football," said historian Thomas Dyer.40 His assessment was only partially right. If, in fact, football was more important than race, then it was quite clear that race was important to football. This importance was indicative of the rush by southern schools to recruit outstanding black athletes from within the borders of their respective states, then throughout the South. Some southern schools commenced to look North for prime black prospects. Tennessee and Florida spearheaded the expansion of the SEC's recruiting of black athletes for the southern front into 71 northern, western, and mid-western states, especially New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Washington state.41 Historians tend to overlook the fact that the South lost more than the Civil War. "Deep South" states also lost trust among each other. Each state could point a finger at the other as to why the intrusive North was not defeated. It has been said that hostilities southern states perpetuated amongst each other for each blaming the other for allowing the North to diminish the southern way of life gave rise to a war within the Confederacy itself. Football among schools of the Confederacy represented a warlike medium through which their hostilities could be vented. Congruently, if black athletes could be deployed to hold the line against the Confederacy by northern schools, they could also be utilized against them, as well as against teams from neighboring states. It was almost as if football was the balm for the southerner Civil War dilemma. And northern teams who had used black players against them had also proved that if football was the intended solution the black athlete was a key ingredient. When ' Ohio State Buckeyes mauled North Carolina State University 38-0 at Raleigh in 1969, Hayes indicated to the press that southern schools would find it difficult to compete with their northern counterparts until the number of black athletes among their ranks increased. Hayes left the question of whether or not he would bring the Buckeyes South again to speculation. It is plausible that Hayes was unaware that the schools of the "Deep South" had already commenced to prepare for his return. A small number of black athletes were integrating predominantly white athletic programs throughout the South. The viability of the black athlete had already been demonstrated by the Tide. Subsequently, Horace King and Richard Appleby arrived at the University of Georgia. Dewey McClain was a formidable offensive end at Tennessee. Joe Harris was wearing the and black of Georgia Tech and Eddie McShan, a black , was on the way. James Schofield was amassing gridiron yardage at Florida, and Zebede Linder was a defensive tackle at South Carolina. When Hayes ventured South again in 1980 to play Clemson in the Gator Bowl, the South Carolina school, with a hoard of black players, soundly defeated the Buckeyes. The changes in southern football during the decade of his absence could have easily caused him to ponder: "Who are those guys?" Even though black athletes had begun to trickle onto the playing fields of predominantly white southern institutions, it was not entirely at the request of the white recruiter or at the insistence of the institution he represented. Their arrival rode the crest of the Civil Rights Movement.42 This was an era in which Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers were on the march throughout the South. Splinter groups such as the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee urged the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to, if necessary, forcefully escalate the thrust for civil liberties. Congruently, there were sit-ins, walk-ins, wade-ins, kneel- ins, pray-ins, and jail-ins. Proponents and opponents were clashing along racial lines in practically every southern state, but more violently in Alabama and Mississippi. The affirmative decisions on civil rights by state and federal courts, particularly in the southern states, were assuring Black Americans of their civil rights with the backing of the Constitution. In large measure, the nation's courts beckoned the nation to fling wide its doors of equality and justice to all. But, as it was in the 1960's and in many subtle instances today, some schools held out. Ole Miss would not send its team against a black player until 1966, when the Rebels traveled to the University of Houston, which had Warren McVea, a black .43 But at Ole Miss, the might of football helped defuse racial crises. In his book, Rebel Coach, former Ole Miss coach John Vaught entitled one chapter, "Football Saves a School." After James Meredith registered as Ole Miss' first black student and riots left hundreds injured and two men dead in 1962, the voice on the phone to Oxford was calm, the words simple: "Coach Vaught, I want you to do what you can to keep the situation calm," said Attorney General Robert Kennedy.44 Kennedy, to voice a popular southern cliche, was "whistling dixie" because violence erupted when Meredith enrolled at the University. Meredith, born in Attala County in Mississippi, served in the Air Force from 1953 to 1960, rising to the rank of staff sergeant. In January 1961, he made his first attempt to register. For the next 18 months, Mississippi fought a losing battle in the courts to keep its university all white. Despite a series of anxious judicial rulings by two federal judges Sidney Mize and Ben F. Cameron, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Hugo S. Black declared that Mississippi must accept Meredith. Governor Ross Barnett, playing an elaborate political charade, told his followers that he would never yield on the issue. At the same time, he was frequently on the phone to Robert F. Kennedy to work out some compromise.45 On Sunday, September 30, 1962, Meredith finally flew to Oxford, Mississippi, in a federal plane and was driven to the campus. President Kennedy, who had thought that Eisenhower's use of federal troops at Little Rock had been a mistake, was extremely reluctant to commit federal troops unless absolutely necessary. When Barnett withdrew at the last minute the state troopers he had promised Kennedy he would use to maintain law and order, an angry mob of whites attacked the federal marshalls. To forestall a full scale riot, Kennedy addressed the nation on television that night and urged Mississippians to obey the law. For fifteen hours 75 open warfare reigned on the campus. Federal troops, arriving late, finally cleared the campus on Monday morning, but only after two individuals, including a French correspondent, had been killed during the riot. The statewide tempest would only calm down on Saturday night when the public attention turned to a Rebel football game which had been moved from the Oxford campus to Jackson.46

E. THE DOOR IS OPEN, BUT NOT WIDE The door through which Southeastern Conference teams might bring black players of their own had to be forced open in the bloody Southern Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s. Subsequently, the anticipation of integrating athletic teams in the South was thought to be merely the taking of a microscopic forward step by blacks in the everyday relations with the white majority. Individual achievements of a black athlete on a predominantly white college campus would be regarded as progress for the race as a whole. Black Americans tended to believe that the totality of the achievements of integrating athletics was going to add up to full equality at some vague future date. What they did not realize was that white America had already compartmentalized its attitude about the Negro race. Subsequently, the black athlete would be admired for his exploits on the field but put in the back of the bus on the way home. Yet, it proved to be an era in which it was plausible to forecast some minor social victories.47 Early in 1965, the SEC prepared for its first black players. The University of Kentucky, the conference's northernmost member, is located in a state pulled equally by the influence of the South and the Midwest. Its schools had been desegregated since 1948 and by the fall of 1965, the state's high schools were well into integrated sports competition. Charles Bradshaw, the former Kentucky coach who signed the SEC's first black football player, felt that Kentucky's geographical location and the existence of integrated high school athletics made it only natural that the university should be the first to initiate the integration of SEC football.48 For more than two years, Bradshaw and University president John Oswald quietly planned their course of action. "After all," said Bradshaw, "this was a pretty big step." In a manner paralleling Jackie Robinson's entrance into major league baseball in 1947 under the guidance of Branch Rickey, the first black player would have to be bright and academically prepared to avoid the potential disaster of failure. It was also critical that Bradshaw not misjudge their athletic abilities, for once signed, they must actually play, lest rumblings would come from the black community.49 On December 12, 1965, Greg Page of Middleboro, Kentucky, and Nat Northington of Louisville signed grant-in- aid agreements with Kentucky. Since freshmen were 77 ineligible for varsity play then, the conference's "Deep South" schools realized they would not have to deal with black player until the fall of 1967. By then, all would have broken the barrier of playing against blacks. And "Dixie" commenced to hum a new tune.50 By August 1967, indications were strong that the historic role of the first black to participate in a SEC football game would belong to Greg Page, a defensive end. He was outgoing, talented, and by pre-season practice that year was listed on the depth chart second only to the team leader, starting defensive end Jeff Van Note, who would spend 18 years with the . Then came the "pursuit drill." On this stifling August afternoon, the Wildcats were in helmets, shoulder pads and shorts, practicing at less than full speed. The pursuit drill was simple: after the quarterback took the snap, whatever direction he went in, every defensive player must follow. Greg Page got to the ball carrier first with every other defensive player piling on. Exactly who made contact with whom is unclear, but when the play was over Page lay on the ground. According to Van Note, who was standing on the sidelines having been replaced by Page, everyone knew that he was hurt, but not how badly.51 Paralyzed from the bridge of his nose down, Page lay in a respirator for 38 days. When he died, a distraught Northington and two freshmen black players, Wilbur Hackett 78 and Houston Hogg, went back to the dormitory to pack their bags. No great social experiment could overcome this grief, this uncertainty, this terror. Louisville, the home of Northington and Hackett, is a large, essentially Midwestern city with a large black population. It is, culturally, a million miles from Lexington, the bluegrass home of thoroughbred horse farms and the university where "The Baron" Adolph Rupp, had sternly practiced segregation of his basketball teams, arousing the distrust, indeed the intense hatred of blacks of Louisville. When Hackett returned home, his friends and neighbors admonished him: "They killed Greg up there, man. What are you still doing up there?" The attitude of blacks in Louisville was that there was a plan and a plot to kill black players, and Hackett would be next. Hackett did not think that Page had been murdered, but he was confused, 18 years old, and the earth was still soft on the graves from the Civil Rights Movement in the "Deep South," and the ghettos were in flames and riots in the Northern cities.52 In spite of being troubled by the nation's bludgeoning racial cimate, Hackett forced himself to be rational. It was hot, August, and everyone was tired. The players had no idea what they were doing, and someone happened to hit Greg wrong, or Greg had hit the quarterback with his head in the wrong position. Back in Lexington, Hackett felt alone. Van Note, a white senior from Louisville, was asked by Coach 79 Bradshaw to room with Northington to comfort and reassure him.53 Northington had played the season opener against Indiana but suffered a shoulder injury that would prevent him from playing the remainder of the season. After Page died, it didn't matter. Northington would not stay at Kentucky now. The plan of John Oswald and Charley Bradshaw lay at the brink of disaster, but Hackett and Hogg felt let down and betrayed by Northington. Even though it was tough they felt that there was something different about the situation, that they had this "integration thing" going now. The "Difference" was that the white players had gotten to know Hackett and Hogg, whereas before they had not known any blacks personally. White players commenced to be seen more and more in the company of Wilbur and Houston, and as more whites began to know Hatchett, they had begun to like him, and to respect him enough to elect him defensive cocaptain by the Fall of 1968, his first season on the varsity.54 During the week before Kentucky's first road trip into the "Deep South” in 1968 to play Ole Miss, Hackett got a note from a black friend at Kentucky which warned him that "they had guns and dogs down there."55 In July of 1968, a slender, quiet young NAACP leader named Medgar Evers had led a campaign to desegregate lunch counters in Jackson, Mississippi. A group of students from Jackson State University tried a sit-in at a dime store lunch counter. White rowdies crowded in and surrounded them a riot ensued. Two days later, the police arrested more than 400 blacks. Free on bail, Evers was shot in the back coming home from a church and died on the way to the hospital. There were tense times in Jackson after Evers' murder. On the blazing- hot day of his funeral, an angry mob of blacks attacked some policemen. A full-scale riot commenced. The Montgomery bus boycott jolted the nation like an electric shock. Now, so did the murder of Medgar Evers. It sparked new protest campaigns throughout the nation. In every sizeable city, black and white demonstrators took to the streets. Sometimes their nonviolent campaigns were rewarded with violence. If the Evers' case shocked the nation, a worst moment was yet to come. On a placid Sunday morning, September 17, 1963, in Birmingham, a Sunday school class of black children gathered at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King had rallied his followers for the bus boycott in May. A bomb went off and four girls, ages eleven to fourteen, lay dead.56 It was quite plausible that the note to Hackett was meant to ease the tension of the trip. Instead, it made him and Hogg think even more. They seriously discussed intentionally missing the team plane. Jeff Van Note states that what he most vividly recollects about the 1968 season surrounding the game in Jackson was the coaches told the team "There is no reason to be alarmed. You're here to play 81 football. But there'll be an awful lot of armed guards on the bench."57 The armed guards were Mississippi highway patrolmen, big white men, military veterans, good ol' boys by birth and by the grace of Smith & Wesson .357 magnums on their hips. Among them, and other white Southerners, a racist football joke had been going around in recent years. Two colored schools were playing, the joke went. Late in the game, one of the coaches knows he's got to score, and he hollers to the huddle, "Give at ball to LeRoy!” The quarterback hands off to LeRoy, and blap! He gets stomped in the mud. "Give at ball to LeRoy!" the coach hollers. The quarterback turns around and hollers to the coach, "LeRoy say he don't want at ball!"58 Hogg and Hackett had never heard the joke. As Hogg took his stance at fullback, he did not understand the first time he heard a big highway patrolman holler, "Give at ball to LeRoy!" But it did not take long. "LeRoy say he don't want at ball!" another patrolman yelled. Hackett was both terrified and angry. These were the armed guards assigned to protect them. Did these guards hate blacks so much that they themselves might be a menace? "Go to hell!" Wilbur Hackett yelled back. Kentucky's Sports Information Director, Russell Rice took Hackett's arm and said in a hushed tone, "Wilbur, there's nothing you can do. We're on their turf. Let it go." On the field, Hackett was somewhat 82 relieved after his first tackle of Ole Hiss' star quarterback, . The other Ole Miss players seemed equally polite. But from the sidelines, all afternoon, the assigned guardians of the Kentucky players' lives continued to yell, "LeRoy say he don't want at ball!" When the final gun sounded, Kentucky had lost, but the milestone day in the SEC had ended safely. The door was open, but not wide.59 CHAPTER III NOTES

1Furman Bisher, The Black Watch (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 43; John Behee, Fielding Yost's Leaacv to the (Ann Arbor, Mich. : Uhbrick's Books, 1971), pp. 127-32. 2Bisher, Black Watch, p. 44, Behee, Fielding, pp. 127- 32. 3Derrick Mahone, "Consistency Has Been The Problem," The Atlanta Constitution. 31 Dec. 1983, Sec. D, p. 13; Ernest Reese, "Racial Make-Up in the Southeastern Conference," ibid., 18 Aug. 1985, Sec. D, p. 11. 4Lerone Bennett, Jr., Wade In The Water (Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1976), pp. 251-52; idem., "When the Man and the Hour are Met," in C. Eric Lincoln, ed., Martin Luther Kino: A Profile (New York: Hill and Wang, 1970), pp. 12-13. sBennett, Jr. Wade, p. 237; David L. Lewis, King; A Biography (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), pp. 137-52; John Hope Franklin, From Slavery To Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 1965), pp. 454-93. See also, J. Rupert Picott, In Black America (Los Angeles: Presidential, 1970), pp. 501-14. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (New York: Dial, 1958), p. 96. An assessment of a variety of entities which impacted upon desegregation in the South, see Len Holt, The Summer That Didn't End (New York: Macmillian, 1965); Merril Proudfoot, Diarv of A Sit-In (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962); James Peck, Freedom Ride (New York: American Library, 1962); Nicholas Von Hoffman, Mississippi Notebook (New York: David White, 1964); James W. Silver, Mississippi: The Cloned Society (New York: Viking, 1965); Lorraine Hansberry, The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Eoualitv (New York: Spengler, 1964) . 7Paul McGirt, "Black Political Progress Since 1964," Public Interest. 67 (1987): 118-30; Brian McGreery, "A Challenge For Us All," The Atlanta Daily World. 15 Jan. 1988, Sec. C, p. 2; Lerone Bennett, Jr., "Is History Repeating Itself," Ebonv. 34 (October 1989): 46-52. See

83 84 also Coretta Scott King," Martin's Legacy," ibid., 41 (January 1986): 105-24. William Winter, "The Delicate Balance of Athletic Chemistry," Southern Growth Policies Board. 10 (August 1971): 27. Winter is now the chairman of the Southern Growth Policies Board Third Commission of the Future of the South, a "think tank" of scholars and progressive politicians. ’Booker T. Harvey, "A Brief Survey of the Development of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) from 1913 to 1963," Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. 3 (January 1984): 78; Willie Morris, The Courting of (New York: Doubleday, 1983), p. 33. For Carem's statement, see O.I. Davis, Gramblinq's Gridiron Glorv (Rurton, La.: M&M, 1983), p. 47. 10Winter, "Delicate Balance," p. 31. For Bruce's statement, see Anthony Lewis, Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution (New York: Random House, 1964), pp. 42-48. 11 John D. McCall vim, Southeastern Conference Football (Montgomery, Ala.: Gateway Books, 1983) p. 18; Stanley Scott, "Oglethrope's Georgia," The Atlanta Journal. 19 Nov. 1952, Sec. A, p. 4. For an extensive comparative analysis of the South's perception of football as being comparable to battles fought during the civil War, see Thomas G. Dyer, The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985), pp. 99-123. 12Lewis Grizzard, "God Makes the Weather and SEC Makes the Ranking," The Atlanta Constitution. 12 Sept. 1985, Sec. B, p. 1; Dudley Percy, "Florida's Political Face Is Changing," The Atlanta Journal. 18 Sept. 1985, Sec. B, p. 6. For a detailed discussion of the status of education and income in Florida, see Numan V. Bartley, Florida's Civil Rights History Doesn't Fit (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1982), pp. 214-72; Bernard Wimbush, "The Mark of Oppression," Journal of Negro History. 18 (1976): 94-112. 13David Sansing, The Foundation for Southern Attitudes (Springfield, 111.: Charles C. Thomas, 1983), p. 240. u Ibid., p. 256. At Gettysburg on July 3, 1883, General George Pickett had led a suicidal last-hope confederate charge up Cemetery Ridge. Thirteen thousand Rebels set out, but 6,000 returned. Losing the war, in the minds of the South that afternoon, led to the scorn and what Robert Penn Warren called the "self-hatred syndrome" in Southerners. For General George Pickett and Warren's 85 statement, see William B. Hesseltine, The South in American History (New York: Cambridge, 1956), pp. 137-92. 1sFor Cobb's statement, see Sansing, Foundations. p. 244. 16Tom Teepeiv, "Modern South Has No Need To Keep The Symbols of Oppression," The Atlanta Constitution. 17 Nov. 1987, Sec. A, p. 19; Mike Christensen, "White Bias in America: The Shadow of Racism," ibid., 26 Feb. 1987, Sec. C, p. 2; Mark Bradley, "Recycled Racist Blather," The Atlanta Journal. 20 Oct. 1989, Sec. B, p. 1. Indicative of the preceding articles and others reviewed, journalists throughout the large metropolitan cities of the South tend to support the contentions of blacks that the playing of "Dixie" is inherently racist. Some have also made it clear that the continued playing of "Dixie" at public functions will increasingly add to the existing friction between blacks and whites in the South. 17David Corvett, "NAACP Launches Campaign Against Confederate Flag," The Atlanta Journal. 3 Oct. 1987, Sec. A, p. 7; Sam Heys, "Past and Present in Forsyth County: It's a Battleground for Us and Them," The Atlanta Constitution. 25 Feb. 1987, Sec. B, pp. 2-3. On January 16, 1985, members of a racially mixed Civil Rights March for Brotherhood in all- white Forsyth County, a rural area of 12,000 people, approximately 30 miles northeast of Atlanta, were pelted with rocks and bottles by a crowd of 400 angry whites. Due to a legacy of lynchings in the county, no blacks have lived there since Reconstruction. 18For a discussion of the event which occurred on October 27, 1865, see Scott, "Oglethrope," p. 4. 19Donald Spivey, "The Black Athlete In Big-Time Intercollegiate Sports, 1941-1968," Phvlon. 44 (Spring 1983): 116-25; idem., "End Jim Crow in Sports: The Protest at New York University, 1940-1941," Journal of Sport History. 15 (1988): 282-303. 20William M. Simon, "Jackie Robinson and the American Mind: Journalistic Perceptions of the Reintegration of Baseball," Journal of Sport History 12 (Spring 1985): 39-64; Jules Tygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 32-42; William T. Baker, Jesse Owens: An American Life (New York: Free Press, 1987), pp. 119-23; David K. Wiggins, "Wendell Smith, The Pittsburgh Courier-Journal and the Campaign to Include Blacks in Organized Baseball, 1933- 1945," Journal of Snort History. 10 (Summer 1983): 5-29; Jeffrey T. Sammons, Bevond the Ring: The Role of in 86 American Society (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), pp. 122-29. 210cania Chalk, Black College Sports (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1978), p. 135; Art Rust, Illustrated History of the Black Athlete (Net* York: Doubleday, 1985), pp. 223- 95; Tom Perrin, Football: A College History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1987), pp. 1-67. See also, Spivey, "Black Athlete," pp. 116-25. 220cania Chalk, Pioneers of Black Sport (New York: Dodd-Mead, 1975), pp. 211-35; David Anderson, The Story of Football (New York: William Morrow, 1985), pp. 51-55; Jack Olsen, The Climb Up To Hell (New York: Time-Life, 1973), pp. 168-90; William Winter, "The South Must Play Together," Scott Countv Times. 3 Sept. 1959, Sec. E, p. 10. See also, Dyer, University, pp. 314-33. ^Cass Lumkuler, "Alexander To Meet With Governor, Regents," The Atlanta Constitution. 26 Oct. 1934, Sec. A, p. 1; Zipp Newman, Southern Football (Montgomery, Ala.: Morros- Bell, 1969), p. 24. See also, Bisher, Black Watch, pp. 44- 47; Perrin, A College History, pp. 138; McCallum, Southeastern. pp. 48-49. The 9-2 win over Georgia Tech was Michigan's only victory in 1934. 24Ralph McGill, "Breaching the Custom," The Atlanta Journal. 5 Jan. 1955, Sec. A, pp. 1-2. 25Bobby Dodd Interview, Georgia Tech Athletic Association, Atlanta, Georgia, 28 July 1986. 26Ibid; Bisher, Black Watch, p. 92; Dyer, University, pp. 297-335; Wayne Minshew, "The Question of Mixed Football," The Atlanta Journal. 8 Jan. 1956, Sec. A, p. 11. McGill, "Breaching," pp. 1-2. 27Bisher, Black Watch, pp. 153-69; McGill," Breaching," pp. 1-2; Dodd, Interview. 28Minshaw, "The Question," p. 11. Nodding Carter Interview, Merchandise Mart, Atlanta, Georgia, 6 August 1986. ^Bradford Fresh and Danley Watt, "Dodd Bows Out,” Jackson Clarion-Ledqer. 17 Feb. 1956, Sec. B, p. 1; Jim Viondi, "Yellow Jacket Stings SEC," The Atlanta Daily World. 22 Jan. 1956, Sec. B, p. 3; Hal Hayes, "Putting Foes in a Heavy Lather," The Knoxville Times. 30 Nov. 1956, Sec. G, p. 3. 87 31Sansing, Foundations, pp. 240-76. 32Leon Friedman, The Civil Rights Reader (New York: Walker, 1976), p. 350. See also Basil Matthew, The clash of color (New York: Macmillan, 1965), p. 229. 33Benjamin Muse, The American Negro Revolution: From Nonviolence to Black Power. 1963-1967 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968), p. 420; Hosea Williams, "SCLC Puts Might of Its Organization into Boycott," SCLC Newsletter. 41 (July-August 1964): 1-2. ^Bradford Chambers, Chronicles of Black Protest (New York: American Library, 1968), pp. 164-76; Albert P. Blanstein and Robert G. Zangrando, Civil Rights and the American Negro (New York: Washington Square, 1968), pp. 162- 64. See also, Tom Kahn, "Civil Rights: The New Racism," Time. 13 (July 17, 1966): 21-6; Patricia Romero, "The South: Notes from the Bottom of the Mountain," U.S. News and World Report. 30 (September 12, 1963): 58. 35Donald Honig, "Playing For Keeps," Baton Rouge Biscavne. 7 Dec. 1969, Sec. p. 9. For a more indepth discussion and analysis of the role and influence of Southern politicians on football in the South see also, Sansing, Foundations. pp. 240-76; Dyer, University, pp. 314- 33. ^Spivey, "The Black Athlete," pp. 116-25; Rust, Illustrated History, pp. 223-95. See also, Perrin, College History, pp. 1-67. 37Paul Bryant, Bear (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), p. 219; Raad Cawthon, "Bearing a Heavy Legacy," The Atlanta Constitution. 11 Dec. 1989, Sec. F, p. 10. 38Larry Pack, "No Note for Vols," The Knoxville Times. 12 Nov. 1957, Sec. B, p. 8. 39Ibid. 40Thomas Dyer Interview, University of Georgia, Athens, Ga., 7 May 1986. 41MaCallum, Southeastern, p. 316; Mark D. Rodell, "SEC Finding a Fairer Divining of Athletic Recruiting," The Atlanta. Inquirer, 4 Aug. 1974, sec. c, p. 3 . 42McCallum, Southeastern, pp. 241-324; Picott, Black, pp 184-332. 88 4SVan C. Woodward, The Burden of Southern History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970), pp. 113-37; Robert N. Miller, "Birmingham: Nonviolence in Black, Violence in White," Christian Century. 10 (April 1967): 7- 11. James Baldwin, "The Dangerous Road Before Martin Luther King Jr.," Harper's. 15 (February 5, 1960): 24-31; John Vaught, Rebel Coach (Philadelphia: Sanders, 1970), p. 196. See also, Neil Andus, "Scrooge is Still Alive," Time. 51 (October 19, 1964): 14-17; Gerald Dunham, Echoes From The Mountain Too (Houston: Infinity, 1983). ^Vaught, Rebel Coach, p. 277. 45Elizabeth Sutherland, Letters From Mississippi (New York: American Library, 1966), p. 262; Nicholas Von Hoffman, Mississippi Notebook (New York: David White, 1966), p. 338; Jules Witcover, Eiohtv Five Days: The Last Campaign of Robert F. Kennedy (New York: Putman, 1969), p. 83. See also Doris Saunders, "The Kennedy Years and the Negro," Ebony. 36 (December 1968): 12-39. 46Vaught, Rebel Coach, p. 271. 47Spivey, "Black Athlete," pp. 116-25; Doug McAdams, "The Sailmaker," Journal of Negro History. 44 (February 1975): 28. 48Charley Bradshaw, There is Life After Football (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1979), p. 127. For Bear Bryant's desire to integrate college football at the University of Kentucky, see Chapter 4. 49Ibid., p. 127. For Robinson and Rickey, see Tygiel, Baseball's, pp. 47-70. S0McCallum, Southeastern, p. 232. 51 Jeff Van Note, Interview, Atlanta Falcon's Training Camp, Suwanee, Georgia, 13 Aug. 1986. 52Ibid., For discussion of confrontation between black and white officials, see David Halvorsen, "Cicero Officials Ask for Alert of Troops," Chicago Tribune. 10 Aug. 1966, Sec. A, p. 1; John Means, "Fire Hoses, Billy Sticks, Rout Night Demonstrators," Danville (Virginia) Register. 11 June 1965, Sec. B, p. 2; Ron Gibson, "Police Dogs Used to Halt Downtown Negro Demonstrators," Birmingham News. 3 May 1967, Sec. A, pp. 1-2; Malcolm Boyd, "Violence in Los Angeles," Christian Century 28 (July 1966): 13-17. See also, Arnold Schuchter, White Power. Black Freedom (Boston: Beacon, 1968), pp. 26-91. 89 53Van Note, Interview Bradshaw, There is Life, pp. 163- 209. "Bradshaw, There is Life, pp. 216-24. 55Ibid. 56Lewis, Kina, pp. 218-25; Howell Raines, Mv Soul Be Rested (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1977), p. 273; Thomas Morgan, "Requiem or Revival, Look. 41 (August 1968): 73-75; Richard Price and Bob Stewart, "Peace Prevails as Police Jail Demonstrators, Including Medgar Evers," Jackson Clarion- Ledaer. 17 July 1968, Sec. A, pp. 1-3; Portia Scott, "Students Arrested in Jackson," The Atlanta Daily World. 19 July 1968, Sec. F, p. 2. 57Van Note, Interview. 58Ibid.; Bradshaw, There Is Life, pp. 227-53. "Bradshaw, There Is Life, pp. 265-69. CHAPTER IV BLACK ATHLETIC SUCCESS A. ROLL TIDE ROLL

The tumultuous entities of the Civil Rights Movement did little to derail the transport of black athletes to SEC schools. Tennessee began recruiting black players in 1967. Despite the turmoil of the 1960s, the demand for exceptional black athletes had increased as various southern universities had decided to integrate their athletic teams. Inevitably, SEC recruiters and brokers beat the bushes for the super black. Such a black was A1 Davis, one of the most sought after player in the history of prep football. Over 150 colleges approached him, including every Big 10 and Big 8 team. The University of Tennessee had a lily-white football team and A1 Davis, who had attended high school in Alcoa, Tennessee, 15 miles from the UT campus, was the obvious choice to break the color barrier. Offered a football scholarship, Davis was taken to the Knoxville campus and shown around. The high school senior signed a letter of intent to attend Tennessee during halftime of the Tennessee-Alabama game, while sitting on the Volunteers' bench. Davis had integrated his team and he was perfectly satisfied to integrate the Vols, but 90 91 that never happened. The sane day he signed, Davis received a special delivery message which stated: "Dear Nigger, Go Somewhere Else or Die!" A1 Davis subsequently enrolled at Tennessee A&I State University.1 Even though Tennessee's efforts to recruit its first player was put on hold, the twists and turns of Davis' abortive relationship with UT did not reveal the possibility of a racial corruption deeper than the ordinary southern white football fan could tolerate. The initial thrust by Tennessee to recruit blacks was piggy-backed by Mississippi State, Auburn, and Florida, but the numbers were token - one or two at each school. Florida was the exception because throughout the early 1970's, Coach Doug Dickey recruited the first significant number of black players. Other SEC schools commenced to harvest the fertile black athletic talent. By the Fall of 1971, Horace King and Larry West had arrived on the campus of the University of Georgia. Ole Miss, the last all-white SEC team to integrate, scurried Ben Williams, a black defensive lineman, out of Yazoo, Mississippi, to become a Rebel, and at Tennessee, Condridge Holloway became the SEC's second black quarterback.2 While SEC schools moved slowly to integrate, they awaited a sign from the chieftain, Paul William "Bear" Bryant of the . Bryant's powerful Crimson Tide team began playing intersectional games more often than its sister SEC schools. He began to break down the resistance in Alabama when the Crimson Tide played Penn State in the Liberty Bowl in 1959, and then Oklahoma and Nebraska in the Orange Bowl later on. There, the lily­ whiteness of the Tide became more obvious to the nation. Sports writer Jim Murray of the began a steady barrage of columns blasting Bryant. Murray went so far as to suggest that inviting Alabama to play in the Rose Bowl was like extending an invitation to the Ku Klux Klan to march in the Tournament of Roses Parade. There was no doubt in Bryant's mind that Alabama would have gone to the Rose Bowl in 1961, when Alabama was unbeaten and national champions, if the Los Angeles papers hadn't raised the specter of segregation.3 Since Alabama didn't have black players or play against teams that had black players, it had been criticized for years for having an insulated schedule, one that on the surface appeared weaker than others. Bryant was often called upon to debate the issue of the absence of black players and his schedule, but he refused to defend a vulnerable position. For a long time he felt that it didn't matter; folks wouldn't look back and say, well, he had this or that black and he beat so-and-so. They'll just say he won 200, lost 40, tied 2, or whatever. Nevertheless, Bryant was habitually incensed at the sports media over the racist label attached to his football program, but he couldn't do anything about it. Alabama was in a damned-if-you-do, 93 damned-if-you-don't situation. Their SEC opponents were as tough as any in the country, no matter what color the players were, but when Bryant looked around for a team to play outside the conference it had to be from the South. Bryant would have preferred to play Big 10 teams because he felt that not only could he beat them, but the route to the national championship was through the Big 10, Southern Cal, UCLA or Notre Dame. It was the path Bryant would have gladly taken long before it became inevitable, had his game plan for consensus national recognition not been derailed by politicians and hardline southerners.4 After the Civil Rights issue got so hot in Alabama, the way to get elected was to holler "nigger." Governor John Patterson and challenger George Wallace were hollering the loudest in 1966. According to Bryant: That kind of campaign costed us the national championship in 1966, because we had to play Louisiana Tech instead of Michigan State. I told Governor Patterson that I needed his help with the Michigan State game because we were jut getting our program going good. He said, "Shoot, Bear, I need votes to be reelected, not football scores." without the prestige of playing Michigan State, even though we went undefeated, Notre Dame still won the national championship. George Wallace was elected governor. Subsequently, Bear's dilemma continued not only in Alabama, but also above the Mason-Dixie Line. Bryant recalled: When he [Wallace] made his famous stand in the schoolhouse door, I was in Chicago, eating lunch at a fancy restaurant near O'Hara Airport. Since they knew who I was, I left a 94

$20 tip. The waiter looked at me and said, "I don't want any Alabama money," and walked away. He was a white guy, too. I didn't know how to take that, but I knew the reason for it. While in Chicago, I got wind of a hot prospect over in East St. Louis and had a friend to drive me over to visit the kid. I felt pretty good about my chances of getting him to come to Alabama until I made the mistake of mentioning Governor Wallace as a graduate of Alabama. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the young fellow dropped his head and looked away. I knew then that it was time to begin the drive back to Chicago because I had lost him. He was also a white guy.6 Clearly, Bryant was no Civil Rights activist and he certainly didn't agree with everything that Martin Luther King, Jr. said, but he had long seen the wisdom in most of it. Unbeknown to the nation-at-large, particularly the west coast and northern sport journalists who punctuated their praise of Bryant by emphasizing the "whiteness" of his team, Bryant didn't have any trouble accepting integration. When he coached at Kentucky he told its president, Dr. Herman Donovan, that Kentucky should be the first school in the SEC to recruit black players. Bryant told Donovan that the University president could be the Branch Rickey of the conference, but Bryant didn't get anywhere. Admittedly, Bryant was selfish. He was trying to get good players. He wanted to win, and there were a couple of black players who could have helped Kentucky. The second best athlete in the state that year, who went to Illinois, was the son of 95 Bryant's cook. Sulking at the lost of the prize recruit, Bryant expressed his disappointment: You don't change people's thinking overnight. Not in Kentucky, not anywhere. Shoot, when I was back in Arkansas, some of those ignorant country boys thought it was awful that A1 Smith was running for president. Smith was a Catholic, see, and Catholic was a bad word. They didn't know any better. When folks are ignorant you don't condemn them, you teach'em.' Since Bryant felt that the time still wasn't ripe and because he had to play two teams in Mississippi, he held off trying to recruit blacks at Alabama until it became crystal clear to him that the athletic talent of blacks playing at other SEC schools such as Georgia, Georgia Tech, Florida, and Tennessee was becoming increasingly menacing to the supremacy of the Tide. With the influx of black players at sister schools and the threatening loss of SEC dominance, Bryant decided that now was the time to teach 'em. The black question, as it was often put to the Bear, didn't bother him a minute compared with that three-year slump Alabama went through from 1967 through 1969. Some schools might not have considered those years so bad because Alabama played in a bowl game each year, but Alabama also lost fourteen games during that period. In response to the question regarding the lingering "Whiteness" of his team and its impact upon his team's ability to compete against SEC schools with black players, Bryant said, "My selection of players hadn't been sharp in the late sixties, and that was sure my fault. For the first time since coming back to Alabama, I felt that my program was missing, and that I was out of touch with the changing 'complexion' of the SEC's game."8 Bryant, by now surely realized that teaching 'em and "winning" had interchangeable meanings; and their accomplishment dictated that he change the "complexion" of his own game plan. Politicians and hardliners, notwithstanding, he would begin to turn the tide. When Alabama played Auburn in Birmingham on national television in the final game of the season on December 5, 1969, Bryant had a muscular black youth to darn an Alabama jersey and told the youth to "stand by me every second, I need you." When the young man asked, "for what?" in the vernacular of the youth's slang, the Bear growled, "for real!" Bryant knew that they were going to put the camera on him sooner or later, and he wanted them to see that black face over that Alabama jersey. The camera flashed to Bryant about twenty times that day and the black youth was right there beside him every second.9 Unbeknown to Bryant at the time, this surrealistic deployment of the black youth to attract black players was not irrational in the sense that the adventure served as an omen to forecast the advent of reality, which hit Bryant squarely between the eyes on the evening of September 12, 1970. On that evening Bryant's response to the black youth a year earlier proved to be a renaissance in Alabama football because it was rudely 97 awakened to the necessity of recruiting black players by another black player. , a black fullback, was called "The Bam" because of the way he slammed into defensive lineman on his way to touchdowns. He surely deserved the nickname for the way he bombarded Alabama's defensive unit for three touchdowns in Southern Cal's humiliating 42-21 route of Alabama in the 1970 season opening game in Birmingham. Bryant walked off Birmingham's determined never again to enter a season so unarmed. He realized that he could no longer win without black players. It is widely believed that Bryant said when walking off that Cunningham "just did more for integration in the South in 60 minutes than Martin Luther King, Jr. did in 20 years." Bryant would later attribute the statement about Cunningham's contribution to the Civil Rights Movement to one of his assistants, Jerry Claiborne. No matter who said it, no matter how overstated it is, Bryant began mapping plans that evening for the immediate recruitment of black players at Alabama. That night, driving back to Tuscaloosa, Bryant told a friend and business associate, "We're going to have to make some changes. To compete, we're going to have to have black players."10 After the 1970 season, Bryant sought advice from an old friend, Coach of Michigan, about what to expect from black players. "They won't quit on you," Schembechler said. "They got nowhere to go nothing to go back to." Bryant dispatched his young assistant coach Pat Dye to Ozark, Alabama, to recruit a black running back named Wilbur Jackson. Dye, the Bear's best recruiter, had grown up in the Georgia farmlands, working side-by-side with blacks in the fields. In 1968, a black minister, the Rev. John Tower, had preached at the funeral of Dye's grandfather. Dye knew that Jackson was better than what they were lining up and playing with at Alabama at the time. Though Alabama had good teams in the 1960s, Bryant never had the talent that he had after integration. The teams at Alabama in the 1960s would not come close to being competitive against an Alabama team of two decades later with its cadre of stellar black players.11 In Ozark, Dye told the shy, uncertain Jackson, "There's no way I can say what it's going to be like for you as the first black athlete to walk onto the Alabama campus." He also informed the young recruit that he would be treated fairly by the players but he couldn't assure him that he wouldn't hear racial slurs or remarks on campus. Dye heard from an Alabama alumni: "If you sign him, I ain't ever coming to another game!" Dye's reply: "That's your problem!" Bryant invited Jackson to visit the campus, and when he entered Bryant's office. Bear laid it on the line: I had one black high school coach to call me about his boy's chances at Alabama and I said he would be welcomed and treated fairly, but if I were you I would send my boy someplace 99

else, because we are still two or three years away. I am sure there are people at Alabama who will resent your being on the team. People who will never accept you. This is all new to me. You got to have problems. Our white ones have them. I can't tell you you won't or what they'll be. But before you go to anybody else with them, you come to me. I —' might have to pat you on the back. I might have to kick you in the tail. I might have to yell at and squeeze you a little. But I'll be fair. I think I can coach a kid as good as anybody, black, white or green. I don't think you're better because you're black. But I think you are now like I was when I came out of Arkansas. You don't want to go back to what you came from. I know you won't quit on me and I won't quit on you. Alabama signed Wilbur Jackson. Early in January of the next year, 1971, while attending the NCAA Convention in Houston, Bryant visited the hotel room of his old friend John McKay, coach of the USC Trojans, who had devastated the Tide the previous autumn. Over lunch in McKay'sroom, the Alabama coach questioned McKay about a number of West Coast prospects Bryant had on his list. Bryant knew that he couldn't beat McKay if the USC coach wanted any of them bad enough, but he was checking anyway. McKay boasted to Bryant that the best one out there wasn't even on his list. He was John Mitchell, a black defensive end from Bryant's own back yard, Mobile, playing at East Arizona State Junior College and USC was about to sign him. Bryant excused himself from the room and phoned his office to find out exactly who Mitchell was. Within five minutes, an assistant coach informed Bryant that John Mitchell checked out. Alabama's pursuit of Mitchell was 100 on. It so happened that Mitchell was home for the Christmas holidays at the time. Two hours later, Alabama's recruiter in the area had Mitchell and his mother eating dinner in a motel room in Mobile, and Bryant talked with both of them, Mrs. Mitchell first, long distance from Houston. Bryant tended to believe that the best thing that he had going for him in recruiting was the prospect's mother, and he made a friend out of Mrs. Mitchell, while proclaiming that she had also gained a friend in "Old Papa." Since Wilbur Jackson, now a sophomore, did not figure to start, Bryant told Mitchell that he would be the first black to ever start and that should mean something to him. Mitchell was receptive and he signed with the Tide. When McKay got wind of Alabama's pursuit of Mitchell, he flew to Mobile on Tuesday, two days later, but it was too late. Bryant had phoned his office around noon. Mitchell had signed by evening. All this happened on Sunday. Mitchell had wanted to play at Alabama all along but when he graduated from high school the Crimson Tide was still not recruiting black players. He subsequently attended a junior college to wait and hope. Once Bryant contacted him, USC never had a chance. Since freshmen were then ineligible for the varsity and Mitchell a junior college transfer, he became in 1971 the first black athlete to play for Alabama.13 Mitchell arrived on the Alabama campus earlier than the rest of the students that fall. He entered his dormitory 101 room and waited. Soon his roommate for the year, Bobby Stanford of Albany, Georgia, walked in. Mitchell was shocked because Stanford was white. As he began to play, Mitchell could sense the fans warming in the stands. They saw blacks and whites competing and having fun, interacting, and winning. Football was a common cause to cheer for and rally around. It was the one big thing that blacks and whites could do together. Mitchell could feel the change trickle out into the town of Tuscaloosa. There was a little bar in town called the "Tide" and it was sort of a tradition for the football players to go there on Wednesday nights to drink some beers. When Mitchell first went into the bar, all eyes were on him as no black had ever been in there before. When Mitchell was introduced as a football player, everybody went back to what they were doing. Concurrently, everybody tried to buy him a beer. A year later, his picture was hanging on the wall. In 1972, the overwhelmingly white Crimson Tide elected John Mitchell team captain. Throughout the Deep South, the message was clear: If football was indicative of a holy war for the southern way of life black troops were welcome allies. After Herschel Walker led Georgia to the national championship in 1980, the catch phrase among white Georgia fans was, "God Bless Earl Warren," referring to the Chief Justice who led the 1954 Supreme Court decision ordering the desegregation of southern schools.14 102 After Bryant's retirement and shortly before his death in 1983, Howell Raines, a reporter for the New York Times, a native Alabamian and a graduate of that state's university, wrote a moving introspective article in the New Republic in which he posed the question: If the Bear was such a saint and hero, why did he wait until 1971 to integrate his teams? The answer was never considered as a complexed "black thing" with Bryant as many white and black people outside the South perceived it to be. In reality, the Bear's lateness in stemming the Tide to integrate weighted equally or even on a higher rationality than that of Tennessee's in the Vols signing of A1 Davis. Consider the fact that as the marching bands of both institutions prepared for their prancing during the halftime of the Tennessee-Alabama game, Bryant, with the eventual outcome of the contest decidedly in the Crimson's favor, sauntered over to Tennessee's sideline where Davis, the high school recruit, was standing and said, "We sure would like to have you at Alabama but you know how things are." Davis said, "Sure, I know." As superficial as Bryant's approach to Davis was, it was clearly a reflection of the racial climate of the South, a segregationist mentality mandated by the times. But Bryant's approach was also one which carried with it enormous implications of conciliation and hopefulness.15 It is quite plausible that skepticism was drawn to Bryant over race and sport during his formative years at 103 Alabama because he displayed little overt, definitive measures to challenge southern bigotry and that it is only now that the nation deems it necessary to pay reverence to him. But, before he is forever enshrined as an icon of sports, it is worth remembering that Paul Williams Bryant, Jr., was also a public man who lived in a poor and troubled state at a grim time. When Bryant fielded his first Alabama team in 1958, George c. Wallace made his first campaign for governor. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, these two men were the dominant figures of public life in Alabama and the state's main representatives to the nation. In that time, they so dominated the consciousness of the state that it is only in relation to Wallace that the service that Bear Bryant rendered to Alabama can be understood and how, like so many lesser men, he also failed that state in the midnight of its humiliation. Nevertheless, the record is fairly strong that Bryant felt contempt for Wallace's brutalizing racist politics. He worked behind the scenes with the university president to try to soften some of Wallace's behavior. In 1963, he warned Bull Connor, the police chief of Birmingham who had become a television celebrity when he turned the fire hoses on children, that if tickets were not made available to blacks at Alabama games in Birmingham, and if they were not treated with courtesy, then Alabama would not play any more games in that city. Bryant and his team provided a diversion from the old compulsion. They gave the state at least one 104 thing to be proud of when Wallace was making it an objective of ridicule. If Bryant never stood up to Wallace, as he might have, he at least forced the little man to share center stage, and the "Bear's" huge, calm presence made Wallace look small and shrill.16

B. MELDING TRADITION AT OLE MISS Not as overwhelming as Bryant was his chief rival, the staid John Vaught of the University of Mississippi. While Vaught and Ole Miss were legendary, Bryant and Alabama were emerging SEC powers. Two weeks after Cunningham rolled over the Crimson Tide, Vaught's all-white Rebels, led by Quarterback Archie Manning, rained similar humiliation upon Alabama, 48-23. Vaught had never recruited blacks and didn't plan to start now. He had promised in the late 1960s that as long as he was the Ole Miss coach, there would be no blacks on the Rebels.17 Since the early 1950s — well before Bryant arrived at Alabama in 1958 to begin rebuilding a weak team — Ole Miss ha been a perennial national power. By the mid-1960s, though, Alabama had become Ole Miss' nemesis. Early in the 1970 season, Mississippi had cleared the hurdle of Alabama and Vaught's Rebels were off on what seemed to be an openfield run for the national Championship. A month later, the Rebels, ranked fourth in the nation, pranced into their homecoming game, a supposed breather against a downstate pest, Southern Mississippi. 105 USM brought a 5-foot-4, 140 pound black running back, a junior college transfer from the swamp and bayou county, Willie Heidelburg. In the stands, some Ole Miss fans began to holler a racial taunt common at the time: "Give at ball to LeRoy!" By early in the fourth quarter, after Heidelburg had scored two touchdowns, one Ole Miss fan howled: "Don't give at ball to LeRoyl" After the final gun, with the scoreboard reading USM 30, Ole Miss 14 and the Rebel's national championship hopes in ashes, another fan headed for the exits telling a friend, "Looks like we're gonna have to get us a LeRoy."18 At home that evening, Vaught suffered a mild heart attack. He would not coach again until midway through the 1973 season after which he would retire. By then the Ole Miss dynasty lay in ruins. From 1970 to this day, Ole Miss has not contended for a national championship or even an SEC one. Ole Miss now has a coach, Billy Brewer, who is considered one of the best in the conference at recruiting black players, and the Rebel football team is half black. But Ole Miss got a late start, recruiting only a handful of blacks during the landrush for black players in the early 1970s, and has never recovered its strength of the 1950s and 1960s. In his book on Marcus Dupree, Willie Morris wrote, "One solitary midnight, I found myself alone in the Square. A cold wind was whipping in from Kansas by way of Memphis and 106 the upper Delta...I felt the ghosts of Ole Miss football games on golden, vanished afternoons."19 The ghosts of long buried traditions are striving again at the tiniest and most unique of SEC schools. In the long- dead dynasty of Ole Miss football, there is again a pulse, but one which did not vibrate for Marcus Dupree, Mississippi's "school-boy" version of Herschel Walker.20 In 1981, when Marcus Dupree had narrowed his choice of colleges to twelve, the pulse of Ole Miss was barely discernable. Ole Miss was not on his list. The deletion of Ole Miss at that early date was a grievous blow to that school's athletic pride, especially since its in-state rivals, Mississippi State, Southern Mississippi and Jackson State were still in the running. Some continue to blame Ole Miss's difficulty in recruiting the best black football players on the traditional symbols, especially the Confederate flag. , who had been the head coach at Ole Miss in 1981, privately admitted this might be the case. Tommy Linbaugh, the recruiting coordinator, later reported that another school in the state sent as many as seven letters to each black football prospect stating that he should not go to Ole Miss because of "racial prejudices” there.21 Although Ole Miss had a head start in recruiting Marcus, it just wasn't the environment that he was interested in. 107 Bernard Fernandez of the Jackson Daily News was a voice of rationality: There are bigoted students at Ole Miss, both white and black, just as there are at State, Southern Mississippi, Jackson State, and also at such supposedly enlightened institutions as Harvard. Racial prejudice in America is a diminishing but unfortunate reality, and is hardly confined to one college's campus. Black athletes and students in general are for the most part treated as evenhandedly at Ole Miss as they are at any other predominantly white institution in Mississippi. White supporters of other schools in the state who suggest otherwise ought to examine their own civil rights records before throwing rocks at someone else's glass house.22 Whatever the reason, on the morning of November 23, 1981, the Ole Miss Rebels were out of the race for Dupree, to the profound dismay of their partisans, although they kept trying. In 1981, there were approximately 700 black students at Ole Miss out of an enrollment of ken thousand. The university actively recruited blacks and encouraged their participation in extracurricular activities, yet there were subtleties. There were only seven full-time undergraduate black professors. Money was one problem, and black professors and administrators were often lost to other larger schools. The rural backdrop was another as was the absence of a sizeable middle class black community in Oxford. The pervasive sorority and fraternity systems also remained segregated. Many black students complained that they did not feel they were a significant part of campus 108 life and that, in fact two campus cultures existed. Other stories had been told. In a freshman zoology class of thirty-six students, mostly white sorority girls, no one chose to be the laboratory partner of the only black student. Finally, after an embarrassing interval, a white girl who was not in a sorority volunteered. In a history class which was discussing the Meredith riots, a black student argued: "Only the vocabulary has changed. How many black professors are there? How many administrators?" A white private academy graduate replied: "If things are so bad, why are you here?"23 A final contention lay in the traditional symbols of the Ole South. Many blacks complained of the school's "Dixie," the mascot, "Colonel Rebel," and the wavering of the Confederate flag at athletic events; the flag is by far the most inflammatory. The first black cheerleader in Ole Miss history attracted considerable attention by announcing he would not carry the flag on the field. Both the administration and most of the students understood his wishes, although he was the recipient of considerable hate mail. In the spring of 1983, the Ole Miss blacks, in response to the publishing of several photographs of the Ku Klux Klan in the yearbook, came out with a set of fourteen demands, including the abolition of the Confederate flag, the mascot "Colonel Rebel," and "Dixie." 109 One night several hundred white students, thousands of them by some estimates, marched on a tiny black fraternity house where one of the black student leaders, John Hawkins, the cheerleader who had refused to wave the Rebel flag at ball games, lived. Ten or twelve black students in the fraternity house were confronted by this mob, which yelled "Nigger Night” and "Save the flag!" An Ole Miss spokesman later called this an expression of "spring fever," but in the days that followed many white students taunted the blacks on the campus and in town by waving the flag in their faces and demanding to know why they were not at Jackson State.24 In the summer of 1981, the case could be made that Ole Miss had the inside track in recruiting Dupree. He had attended the Ole Miss summer football camps during his high school years, knew the coaches and they knew him. Two of his closest friends had chosen to attend Ole Miss on football scholarships and there was the additional challenge of "turning the program around." Herschel Walker, after all, had made the University of Georgia a national contender almost overnight.25 It is generally thought that Sloan, head coach at Ole Miss during the 1980-1982 seasons, lacked recruiting skills, particularly those unique entities such as the subtle conveyance of racism at Ole Miss as the wrongful mentality of a bygone era, necessary for recruiting the outstanding 110 black athlete by a "Deep South" school. Since he played for Bryant at Alabama during the time when there were no blacks in Alabama's athletic program, Sloan was hindered in his acquisition of knowledge about blacks in general. This lack of racial contact coupled with the popular attitude of racism on the Ole Miss campus during his coaching regime, hampered Sloan's ability to recruit black athletes while still living under the shadow of legendary coach John Vaught. It is also plausible that Sloan was determined to or at least thought that the football fortunes of Ole Miss could be revived under Vaught's legacy which was marked by an absence of black players.26 The state's lingering massive resistance to desegregation also damaged Ole Miss and the political climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s was such that it was slower than other SEC universities to bring in sorely needed black players, even though Mississippi leads the nation in per capita participation in football - more than twice the national average - the state's population is only about 2.5 million, smallest of the SEC schools.27 Dupree, notwithstanding, for the first time in a decade, the University of Mississippi was ranked by the Associated Press in the Top Twenty in 1986. In historical perspective in this Faulkerian hamlet, a number 20 ranking and a 7-2-1 record may not be much to old followers who once were disappointed with any raking lower than the Top Five. Ill But it is something, a faint pulse in the only long-running point of pride in a state on the nation's bottom in per capital income and education. It is an awakening reason enough for the ghosts to stir, reason enough to reopen the books on the era from 1947 through 1970 when Ole Miss went to 18 bowl games and won six SEC championships under coach John Howard Vaught, and basked in a dynasty of that began with and ended with Archie Manning. And yet those ancient Mississippi wounds, tragedy and flaw and disappointment, are also reopening in this town of passion for literature and football. During the time that Ole Miss writer-in-residence, Willie Morris spoke of the "golden, vanished afternoons," the only tragedy was that the Rebels could do anything and everything but beat LSU in Baton Rouge. That was accomplished on the Rebel most recent outing, 21-19, for the first time since 1968 and for the first time ever with the spectacular performances from black Rebel heroes. This highly visible increase in the number of black players at Ole Miss was not indicative of a change in the segregationist attitude at the university, and least of all, the Mississippi citizenry. Brewer simply needed players. It just so happened that the majority of those needed were black. The shadow of Vaught and the deliberations of Sloan restricted the color under which he recruited. Knowing that Mississippi's best black football players were being heavily 112 recruited by athletic powers north of the Mississippi River, Brewer saturated the state in search of black talent to aid his cause while derailing the practice of racism. Unlike Sloan's lack of recruiting skills applicable to blacks, Brewer pitched and wooed the betterment of race relations throughout Mississippi as the essence of football at Ole Miss and the relevancy of improvements in race relations being spearheaded by black athletes from the Ole Miss campus. While Brewer and his staff were able to entice a large number of black athletes to Oxford they were not the blue-chippers, who continued to exhibit their athletic skills in the north. What Brewer got was lesser talent, black athletes not overly sought by the northern powerhouses. It was not essentially the racist attitude at Ole Miss or the racial climate within the state that caused the blue-chippers to go elsewhere. As was the case with Dupree, the blue-chippers did not consider Ole Miss to be a money school — a springboard to the professional ranks.28 Despite Ole Miss's failure to recruit Marcus Dupree, its football team by 1983 was roughly half white and half black. The Rebel partisans cheered their black players as enthusiastically as they did the whites and the outstanding ones were campus heroes. According to Willie Morris it is one of the endless ironies of this complicated setting that the white fraternity boys with their Rebel flags would display an unqualified pride in the black athletes on 113 Saturday afternoon and inarch against them that same Saturday night. When historian David Sansing once asked, "What manner of state is ours,” he could have easily been referring to a "Save The Flag" rally around the "Square" after a football game victory on a Saturday afternoon, when Carlos McGee, a black, scored the winning touchdown with no time left on the clock. But indications were that some things would change.29 Ole Miss hired coach Billy "Dog" Brewer in 1983. He was born on the wrong side of the tracks in Columbus, Mississippi, the hometown of Tennessee Williams and raised through the rigid discipline of old time Mississippi high school football. A former Vaught quarterback steeped in Ole Miss tradition, Brewer had grown up with blacks in Columbus. His best friend was James Thomas, a black and now an assistant coach at Ole Miss. Brewer was an unheard-of hybrid who could identify with both blacks and with Ole Miss tradition and somehow blend the two into acceptable order for all. Where Brewer's predecessors were able to attract black players — but not the most talented one — to Ole Miss, he felt that they were now in a position to get some of the best black players. Somehow, he is making the tradition meld. It has been said that black players even understand that the Rebel flag is a spirit flag. It stands for someone who will stand and fight to the last dying breath.30 114 The author William Faulkner, a champion of black people Ion? before it was popular or safe in Mississippi, would be absolutely fascinated by Brewer's sustenance of the black players. Clyde Goolsby, an academic adviser and confidant to most of the black athletes who have passed through Ole Miss, suggests that blacks on Brewer's team would kill somebody for him. And the ghosts of Ole Miss are stirring again, the traditions integrated at last in a way Faulkner longed for and not even the cold wind out of Kansas can spoil the fresh breezes of change blowing through the square at Oxford.31

C. COME ON DOWN...TELL US OF YOUR TIME Fill a lecture room with a cadre of black athletes who are currently playing football in the SEC and ask them who was Richard Wilson, Godfrey Dillard and Eddie McShan? It is quite plausible that there wouldn't be many correct answers. Nobody wanted to talk much about them 20 years ago. They were the invisible football players, black men in a white man's league. White southerners who weren't yelling at them were looking straight through them. So why should it be that their courageous journey should be forgotten, even in a football conference in which 63 percent of the players are now black.32 The alumnus of Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech, respectively, have never called to say: Come on down. Tell us of your time. What was it really like? 115 Perhaps there is a message to be heard. No high school All- Americans have call either of them for advise. Not even a nostalgic sports writer. But football was never an end, only a means to them.33 Now and then a black athlete enters an SEC school who is so outstanding on and off the field that he is able to exercise enough of his troubles to beat the system and becomes the personification of the word "breakthrough." He can be a force for racial enlightenment on the campus. One thinks immediately of Richard Wilson. He emerged from obscurity about midway in the 1974 Mississippi State-Auburn game, when the more than 25,000 spectators in Memorial Stadium began to notice that a lot of tackles were being made by a stocky MSU defensive tackle wearing the number 62. The game program revealed only that he was Richard Wilson, a sophomore, 218 pounds, 5 feet, 10 inches and a native of Moss Point, Mississippi, which was a small community where chopping cotton and picking pecans for a dollar and twenty- five cents an hour were considered to be black cultural forms. It was manual labor for blacks and desks for whites. Until the late 1970s, when a few blacks were hired as bag boys in the supermarkets, the only job for blacks in Moss Point was chopping, hoeing, picking, and loading watermelons from May till June. In the black community, school teachers were the upper class, and a black principal was out of sight. There were no black doctors, dentists or lawyers.34 Wilson attended all-black "separate-but-equal" Moss Point City Schools, where he learned very little, never took a book hone and graduated with a four point average. According to Richard, it wasn't the teachers fault. It was the system which permitted him to attend school till noon, recess for lunch until football practice and spend most of the night in the pool room. When he graduated from high school, where he was an all-star lineman, he received scholarship offers from a dozen black colleges, but he wanted to be a doctor and felt that you couldn't get into a good medical school, coming from one of those southern black colleges even if you had a four point average. He reasoned that the academic standards at black colleges were too low. Wilson wrote letters to the coaches of several white university football teams in Mississippi, and Paul Davis, head football coach at MSU, offered him a football scholarship in mid-August of 1973. Several weeks later the not-quite-typical Mississippi black arrived on the Starksville campus toting all of his possessions in a single burlap bag. Unlike most black scholarship athletes who had integrated SEC athletic programs, he was neither terrified nor fully prepared for the change from Moss Point to MSU.35 Wilson had troubles — the typical black and white troubles — on the football field and in the classroom. MSU was an all-white world, where teammates quit the team upon being urged not to play with "niggers" and socializing with him was "catching." In his first two weeks at MSU, he was so far behind in his classroom work that he thought that he would never catch up. He wrote a report for his first English class and was told by the teacher that it was the worst book report that she had ever seen. Wilson got an "A" in chemistry in high school, but he never did a single experiment. One day a teacher showed him how sodium reacted in water. When he entered MSU, they wondered why he didn't know any chemistry. He wouldn't open his mouth in a classroom for fear of reinforcing the notion of racial inferiority. He saw the way things were going, pulled himself together and began to work. At the end of four semesters at MSU, Wilson was maintaining a 2.6 average on a scale of 3.0. He ranked fifth academically among all SEC football players, and made the Dean's list his sophomore year. This achievement wasn't by sheer brainpower. He was no latent genius but he was soundly motivated. The main thing Wilson had going for him was his doggedness. He would stay up till two or three in the morning studying for a test, and he would stay with a book until he had completely grasped the material. If he had to read it three times, he would read it three times.36 The question of Wilson's "inferiority" had been satisfactorily resolved despite his inner misgivings about himself. At the end of his sophomore year, he was besieged with offers of academic scholarships. He thought long and 118 hard about his obligations to the Bulldog's football team, the instrument of his metamorphosis from Hoss Point black to campus intellectual athlete.37 Wilson bulked large in the Bulldog's 1975 football season, but when the season opened, he was not playing for MSU. He would never wear a football uniform again. He turned out to be too smart - a man who equipped himself with enough of the academic, social, and cultural armor of his college to be able to tear up his athlete's articles of indenture. He concluded that football now represented a barrier to his intellectual pursuits. It was his feeling that learning in the classroom was much more of a necessity, that picking up on everything that the white kids knew was important and he didn't know enough about anything. Wilson, subsequently, accepted an academic scholarship at MSU and broke the color line at an all-white fraternity chapter, Alpha Kappa Lambda, where he was welcome without reservation. He graduated with honors in 1976 and entered MSU's medical school. Now a family practitioner in Baltimore, Maryland, Wilson indicated that even though he contributes annually to MSU's minority scholarship fund, no university official has ever asked him to return to the campus for any event and he has yet to visit MSU since graduating. Further, he indicated that returning to Moss Point to visit his parents, prior to their deaths, was somewhat an ordeal. According to Wilson, he sensed that the groves were still tugging at him and safety was a rapid 119 departure. But he realized that he was no typical product of his deprived environment. He also realized that white southerners can distort the facts, but by his own life proved that a southern black has a chance to get ahead if only he wants to.38 Godfrey Dillard remains only remotely interested in football, which he never perceived to be the salve to sooth the aches of black Americans. When he was growing up on Nashville, Tennessee's north side, he was convinced that you don't mess with sports unless it can help you get an education. Football appealed to him only in the sense that it provided an opportunity to go out there and get a chance to grow and get wise enough to be able to exist in this new world that will be more integrated. He did that, compiling a "B" average at Vanderbilt with a double major of engineering mathematics and electrical engineering and he then moved on to law school at Columbia University in New York. After graduating from law school in 1981, Dillard spent two years as a Legislative analyst to then Mayor Walter Washington in Washington, D.C., lobbying in Congress and the City Council, and one year at George Washington University, in teaching and administration. In 1985, he became a trial attorney for the U.S. Justice Department in Atlanta, Georgia.39 It could have turned out differently, so great was the baggage that he carried through the South for four years, so 120 naked the realities that had stared back at him. He had entered the southern sanctuary of sport at Vanderbilt at age 18 and left it integrated forever. And he did it by himself. In a day when the academic credentials of a black college athletes are questioned nationwide, there is indeed a message in the life and times of Godfrey Dillard. Dillard was a high school All-American on the 1975 Pearl High School football team, which didn't lose a game during a season in which it won the first integrated Tennessee High School championship, awing white fans unaccustomed to the talent of black players. It is worthy to note that Pearl High School of Nashville also won the first integrated state high school basketball championship and continued on to win the mythical national championship with Dillard as an All-American selection in basketball as well as football. Dillard visited three Big 10 schools, whose athletic programs were already integrated. He saw black athletes that sort of existed in a subculture unto themselves; and a lot of them were illiterate and inarticulate. He was impressed that Vanderbilt didn't even have a physical education major. The Commodores were interested; his academic ability could not be questioned, and Vanderbilt was under local pressure to recruit him. Dillard said that it "was so unusual to have spent most of your life with people saying you stay over on this side of town, and then all of a sudden somebody is saying, come on 121 over and play football with us. I felt, Well, they say this is a good thing, and I would like to do a good thing by integrating football at Vanderbilt."40 Dillard and another black, Chris Benham, were teammates on Vanderbilt's 1975 freshman team, which played junior varsity games. The University of Mississippi, without explanation, canceled its home game against the Vanderbilt freshmen team that year. Mississippi State did not. MSU people "were screaming and hollering and threatening us and we sat there at halftime and held each other's hand just to develop enough strength to go back out there and play well and not be destroyed by the flood of hatred," Dillard said.41 Benham was injured and did not play as a sophomore. He was cut from the team the next year, partially, he believes, because he had become the outspoken president of the Afro-American Association on campus. According to Benham he had become a militant civil rights activist in response to the overt racism he was experiencing at Vanderbilt and throughout the SEC. He admitted that his athletic scholarship was rescinded, due to his confrontational disposition which was detrimental to the ideals of the university. He hastened to add, however, that the football coaches wanted black players who were smart and passive; and that he didn't fit the mold. Dillard was therefore left to integrate Vanderbilt athletics alone, venturing into one Deep South stadium after another the next 122 three years. "Godfrey had a fortitude and strength that I obvious didn't have, because I couldn't take it any more,” said Benham, now an attorney in Detroit. "Whenever turn on a tv and see Alabama or Georgia paying and see the black representation on their teams, I think about what a terrific contribution Godfrey and other pioneers made."42 Its a contribution that has not been recognized. Dillard doubts if today's black SEC athletes have any comprehension of the 1970s South. Football, a cherished ground of honor on which only white males could tread, was the region's final citadel of segregation. Buses, theaters, restaurants, swimming pools, and in some places, even public and private schools were integrated before SEC athletics.42 Although SEC football was the South's Saturday religion, it was Dillard on the football field who took a leading role in desegregating the conference. His tour of the SEC was played within spitting distance of opposing fans, who "got very close to you," and said "the most hateful things," Dillard said he ever heard in his life. The people at Ole Kiss, MSU, and Auburn were more enthusiastic about the way they picked on you. They gave you a standing ovation if you made a mistake. He was punched in the face by a Rebel after grabbing a pass in his first game at Ole Miss in 1975. He knew he could never hit back, or even push back. He also couldn't appear to be overly aggressive. "You had to walk a very fine line. If I 123 wasn't aggressive enough, I was lazy," said Dillard, whose performance slumped during the 1978 season when he had mononucleosis. The fans at Vanderbilt noticed. "You'd have people just screaming run black boy, run," he said.43 Dillard felt that he had to play with great control at all times, or else be accused of playing in an undisciplined style that many whites referred to as a "nigger ball." Despite playing in a virtual straitjack, Dillard, a 6-foot-4 end, averaged eight catches per game during his varsity career. He believes that his inconsistent performance as a sophomore and junior resulted from racial harassment, including wondering whether he might be shot while running a pass pattern. Dillard probably would have transferred to another school if it had not been for the commitment he had made to himself. Knowing other blacks would follow him into the SEC, he wanted to leave a positive example. A misstep could slow integration or even postpone it at Vanderbilt until another black was given the opportunity to take the gamble. He became the organization man. When reporters interview him, he said, "all was well."44 That is "what everyone at Vanderbilt wanted to believe anyway." His coach, Bill Pace, and school officials would not acknowledge the harassment Dillard received from fellow students and from opponent's fans, nor would his teammates. Dillard said that he "just wanted somebody to say, Hey, you've not crazy . I heard those people out there calling 124 you nigger and threatening to hang you, and I just want to let you know I'm with you. They wouldn't even say anything to me until I made a stupid play." Still, they elected him team captain in 1979, his senior year. An All-SEC selection that same year, Dillard scored three touchdowns in his final game. The next day, he told a Nashville newspaper reporter about his life on campus. He said that although his fellow students had elected him "Bachelor of Ugliness," the highest honor a male undergraduate could receive, they had been more interested in acknowledging his presence by this distinction rather than celebrating his acceptance by getting to know him.45 Vanderbilt, a private school with an affluent student body, had only about a dozen black students when Dillard entered and perhaps two dozen when he graduated. According to Dillard: These [white] people hadn’t seen blacks function in any role above ditch diggers and maids. So, a lot of times, there was simple amazement that you could do things like make an "A" in physics. There was a white friend of mine who wanted to show me and some of his other black friends off to his parents. He brought them over and then he said to me, "Say something." Just say something, because he wanted to show his parents that I could speak grammatically correct English.46 Any SEC institution integrating its athletic program during the 1970s would like to be able to say, we took the risk and everything worked out fine. Dillard wanted to, and that is "why he never said anything about the racial strife 125 he endured until it was over. He realized that there would be other blacks coming along and if they didn't find out what it was like, they could traumatize by coming into that experience. Dillard really didn't realize how traumatized he had been until he left Vanderbilt. He had to speak some time making sure it didn't have a negative effect on him. After thinking about it over an extended period of time, it became quite clear to him that he had done something that was needed. Twenty years later, Dillard is quietly but fiercely proud of what he did, but he is also thankful for the risk that he took. The proud name of Eddie McAshan resonates across Georgia Tech's football program these days like a loud and mysterious echo from the school's past. His collegiate career crashed to earth in his senior year, 1972, when he was suspended from the team the day before the Georgia game. His final two games of eligibility were quarterbacked by another player, including Georgia Tech's dramatic victory in the Liberty Bowl, during which five black teammates wore black armbands as a show of support for him that night in Memphis. All Eddie McAshan would remember of that night was sitting in a stretch limousine outside the stadium before the game, the Rev. Jesse Jackson at his side, watching hopelessly as scores of black protesters picked the game.47 Some believe that McAshan was a small-town kid who became a victim of the times. During his years at Georgia 126 Tech, McAshan says that the tires of his car were slashed and the windows smashed; that someone once tried to set fire to his dorm room; and that when the Georgia Tech bus drove down fraternity row at Auburn University in 1970, he saw himself hanged in effigy from a tree with a rope around the neck of the stuffed figure wearing jersey No. 1. "It almost seemed," McAshan recalled of that incident, "like the 1920s or 30s."48 Thumbing through copies of old newspaper clips that detail the turbulent times of Eddie McAshan, his legacy is paradoxical. To this day, no one involved with the Georgia Tech football team in 1972 seems fully certain why McAshan walked out. Even then, the details were lost in a haze. McAshan remains consistent with the explanation he gave at the time. After enduring a series of racial incidents on campus, he said the final straw was when he asked a secretary in the football office for four tickets so that his family could attend the Georgia game, but was denied. McAshan retreated to his sister's home in Atlanta in an act of defiance. Defensive back Randy Rhino, an All-American performer that season and now a chiropractor in Atlanta, recalls, "When I heard Eddie had left I was shocked. I was only a sophomore and I was totally oblivious to the things Eddie was going through. A first you got mad that somebody would walk out over tickets just before the Georgia game. 127 Then, you realize that you didn't know all of the details."49 The headlines of McAshan's walkout made the front page. In the middle of the week that followed the loss to Georgia, he found out by reading the papers that his suspension would carry over to include the Liberty Bowl which was scheduled to be played December 18th in Memphis. Leaders of the local black community rushed to his defense. An Atlanta Const!tuticn political cartoonist lambasted McAshan as a puppet of the black leaders, while the paper editorialized: "we can't believe there was any racist motivation” in the handling of the matter by Tech's athletic department and that the whole situation had become "something of a tempest in a teapot." When the announcement came about McAshan's extended suspension, all hell broke loose in Atlanta, the city that fancies itself "too busy to hate." , head football coach at Tech in 1972, who resigned after the season, is in real estate in Augusta, Georgia and he wouldn't comment on the McAshan affair other than to say, "This just opens up old wounds. Just understand there were a lot of extenuating circumstances." Fulcher said that he waited until the very last minute to announce McAshan's suspension from the Georgia game and the Liberty Bowl, "not until we boarded the team bus for the Georgia game.” He said he subsequently conferred with athletic director Bobby Dodd and with university president Joseph Pettit, and "they 128 felt it was a team matter and left it in my hands." Fulcher added, I did what I would have done for everybody. We had to evaluate what was best for the whole program. It was very unfortunate and was not a small contributing factor to my deciding to get out of coaching the next year. There's too much pressure on 18- and 19-year-old kids and that's not the way its supposed to be. He also said, A lot of people had tried to create things, such as racial tensions. There were none. If anything, everybody was pulling hard for Eddie - or for anyone - to be the first back quarterback in the SEC. You don't have to be brilliant to figure that out." But McAshan's version of the extended suspension is quite different than Fulcher's. McAshan said, when he arrived at the team hotel in Commerce, Georgia, he met with Fulcher and asked to play in the Georgia game. Coach Fulcher told me that he would attempt to get me reinstated for the game, and that since I helped the team achieve the wins to go to the Liberty Bowl, I deserved to play in both games. McAshan played in neither.50 Enormous pressure came to bear on McAshan's five black teammates in the week that followed. The black community urged them to boycott the Liberty Bowl as a show of support for McAshan. The black players recall sticking together, receiving death threats from the black community, traveling in a pack to classes and meeting each night to figure out what they should do. "We were only as good as ourselves," Cleo Johnson said. Joe Harris recalls, "I didn't sleep all week. Sure, I was afraid. I cried. It was so traumatic." 129 The period before the Liberty Bowl was "a real man-making time," according to Greg Horne. "Everybody was flashing bulbs in our faces. The black community up in arms. Getting out names eaten up in the papers." Harris recalls two meetings during that week with local black leaders: The meeting was held in a backroom of Paschal's restaurant and all five black players attended. Herman Russell, Jesse Hill, Ralph Abernathy and all the other powerful black leaders were there. Eddie was real quiet at the meeting. He just listened. You have to realize, we loved Eddie, respected him and we sure as hell needed him. I didn't know all of the details but knew Eddie was our leader, but we had to have a mind of our own. All of us were passive people. We were not hell-raisers. The blacks [in the community] wanted us to boycott, but we had to make a decision for ourselves. Each of us conferred with our of parents. You have to realize that hardly any our parents had gone to college. To us, getting an education was all that mattered. You also have to understand that we were pawns on the chess board. Not rooks or queens or kings. Pawns were on the front line with no power. We were just 20-year-old kids.51 Jesse Hill, now president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company and chairman of the board of the King Center for Non-Violent Social Change, recalls intervening on McAshan's behalf. Hill served as an adviser to the quarterback and recalled, "My greatest concern was for Eddie's future. Look what happened to Donnie Moore after his career had ended. When you've used to hearing thousands cheer for you, the change could be difficult. I didn't want to see Eddie turn to drugs and 130 alcohol." Hill was also philosophical in his recollection of the situation: It wasn't just McAshan and football that concerned me. It was the whole issue of racial discrimination and civil rights. If the McAshan thing was a reflection of those two social evils against a single black person, they were also attributable to blacks as a race. It was my feeling that if that was the case on Tech's campus, we needed to get it out into the open and beat it with a stick. After all, we were still in the whirlwind of the Civil Rights Movement. So, why treat the McAshan incident as anything except a part of that struggle.52 McAshan's black teammates recalled that once they had decided to travel with the team to Memphis, they already had decided to play in the game. Two busloads of members from the Atlanta Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also traveled to Memphis to picket, in hopes of yet getting McAshan reinstated. Steve Sloan, then an offensive assistant coach at Georgia Tech, remembered meeting with black leaders and McAshan's black teammates in the teams Memphis hotel. He said, "What struck me was the agony that those black players were in, getting pulled every way." I recall one of the black leaders saying, "The real problem here is that we don't have any black astronauts. What that had to do with Eddie McAshan or us playing Iowa State in the Liberty Bowl, I have no idea." The black players spoke with Jesse Jackson prior to the game. Jackson failed in his attempt to generate a boycott, but he did, with the help of Horne, 131 convince the black players to wear armbands as a show of support for McAshan.53 McAshan knew why his black teammates chose not to boycott. He said, "They had to worry about being gainfully employed in the future. I understand." As the team broke through the line of black picketers outside the Liberty Bowl, emotions weighed heavily on the black players. The estimated 100 picketers held placards, including one that reportedly said, "The Liberty Bowl Supports Slavery." It was heartbreaking," Harris said. According to Rudy Allen, the black picketers called us names, like Uncle Tom, and I just hoped that they wouldn't throw bricks through the windows. It was a very scary and eerie feeling. Horne said, "As a black person, it didn't feel good, but those [picketers] were outsiders who really didn't know all that was going on. Johnson was more concise: "It was like a stone in my heart. It hurts." Neither Randy Rhino nor Jimmy Robinson, both of whom are white, remember seeing the picketers, though they remember some game details. "I guess I was just so focused on what would have been the biggest game of my life at that time," Robinson said.54 Meanwhile, Eddie McAshan had opted not to accept Fulcher's offer to fly with the team to Memphis and take part in every team function save the game. Instead, he arrived with Jackson and said he shared several nights in a hotel with him. He recalled how Jackson, then the director of the Chicago-based Operation Push, took him to the 132 Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been slain four years earlier. McAshan said, "I guess it was real spooky to Jesse. He was trying to instill that feeling in me, but I just couldn't see it. All I wanted to do was play. I deserved it."55 The details of what transpired in Memphis have become "somewhat foggy” to Jackson, but his recollection of McAshan endures. "What I really remember is him being a mild- mannered kid, not arrogant or hostile, who was bearing the burden of his role as quarterback. The idea was to deal with the issue of dignity. All the black quarterbacks of today are riding in the jet stream of Eddie. He was a trailblazer, a sailmaker," Jackson said. Horne put it this way: "Its kind of like the story of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. Rudolph was the reindeer up front and he didn't have a shiny nose, he had a bloody nose because he hit the wind first. Every other reindeer just followed."56 Georgia Tech defeated Johnny Major's Iowa State team 31-30 in the Liberty Bowl and finished the season with a 7-4-1 record. Bobby Dodd, Tech's athletic director, termed it "one of the best victories ever." However, Horne recalled, "It was the most unhappy time of my life, not only because I hurt my knee, but because my roommate who was so instrumental in us winning games that year, didn't play. How could I be happy?"57 133 Twenty years after Eddie McAshan*s arrival as Georgia Tech's first black athlete, the quarterback's passing records are being challenged by another young black quarterback, Shawn Jones, a soft-spoken redshirt freshman from South Georgia. McAshan's name is vaguely familiar to Jones — "I heard he was pretty good" — but he knows little of McAshan's past, how it exploded in 1972, when McAshan was suspended from the Liberty Bowl and became an unwitting pawn in the Civil Rights Movement. Now, Shawn Jones thumbs through copies of old newspaper clips that detail the turbulent times of Eddie McAshan. Jones seems transfixed, his mouth agape at times. "Its sad," he said, finally.58 Shawn Jones is the son of a Thomsvilie, Georgia high school administrator and said he's never been the victim of racism in his lifetime, "unless I was too young to understand it." Yet, he also said, "I can understand what Eddie McAshan must have gone through. He had to excel just to be good."59 The connection of time and place between Jones and McAshan — Rudy Allen in 1974-75 and Mike Jolly in 1976, both part-timers, are the only other black starting quarterbacks in Tech's 98-year football history - is tinged with irony. Jones was born in June 1970, three months before McAshan's first game as the first black quarterback at a predominantly white Southern university. McAshan doesn't believe it's possible for even a black kid to understand what it was like black then. He said white 134 teammates often asked him why he attended Georgia Tech in the first place and that he had responded Atlanta was a progressive city and predominantly black and therefore had seemed right. Of Shawn Jones, he said, "I just don't think he could grasp something like that. He has to live his own times. "59 Eddie McAshan remains bitter about his Tech Experience, but his five black former teammates are part of a group lobbying for a university endowment to honor McAshan for his perseverance, pointing proudly to the fact that McAshan returned to finish his degree in 1979, 10 years after he'd entered. "We're doing this for three reasons," said Karl Barnes, a former teammate. "One, so that we can bring Eddie back into the fold. Two, to right some of the things that were wrong back then. And, finally, so that the Shawn Jones of the world can know who put the footsteps in the snow before the new snow came and wiped the footprints away." Homer Rice, the current athletic director at Georgia Tech, said he doesn't expect opposition to an Eddie McAshan perseverance award or endowment. "I'll give it my blessings," Rice said. And Fulcher added, "I'd be glad to make a contribution." Jackson said, "It would say something for the character of Georgia Tech to exalt him." However, McAshan's black former teammates believe many Georgia Tech alumni still view the former quarterback as the player who defiantly missed practice two days before the Georgia game in 1972. McAshan said that he was never militant, perhaps only a loner. So quiet was he, he never bothered to correct those who pronounced his name Mick-Shan. He frets about the fact some of his high school friends never attended college and now, through seniority, have achieved upper-level management positions. "Seems like society's always pressing you to go to college and I think maybe that doesn't matter in these days," he said. Then he noted that one of his passing peers in college in 1972, Arkansas's Joe Ferguson, is still playing pro ball at age 38. McAshan, meanwhile, had a short-lived hitch in pro football. Fulcher said he wrote a letter to every NFL team before the 1973 draft to say that McAshan was not a trouble-maker, but McAshan is convinced that the suspension served to deflate his pro career. He was drafted in the 17th and final round by the . He was cut in training camp, then hooked on with Jacksonville of the . He suffered a major injury to his knee and shoulder and the team went bankrupt. McAshan's abbreviated pro career over, Atlanta City Councilman Hosea Williams recalled employing him in 1980 in his janitorial chemicals and supplies company in hopes that McAshan could lure big in-town accounts to the company. Williams said, "It didn't work out. McAshan seemed very, very depressed and not able to overcome the shock of what had happened to him at Georgia Tech. He could not put it in the back of his mind. He was bitter and it 136 seemed like his ego had been damaged. It's a shame, too, because his name could have been magic in Atlanta and we both could have made a lot of money."60 History is playing itself like this: , who recruited McAshan in 1968, is now the head coach of the . McAshan's five black teammates, all of whom earned their degrees from Georgia Tech, largely have prospered in the professional world. Karl Barnes went on to earn his master's in business at Wharton, as well as a separate master's degree in city planning at Georgia Tech and has been working for Cousins Properties for nine years. Joe Harris went on to a 10-year career in the NFL, even played in a with the Rams, and now is an investment analysis for Mutual of Omaha. Rudy Allen, who was a third-string player and was the only one of the black players who did not play in the Liberty Bowl game, works for Wang Laboratories, a computer manufacturer, as a senior representative in contractual sales. Cleo Johnson, who had earned his high school diploma from the American-Berlin in Germany, now works for Coca-Cola as a district supervisor. Greg Horne, a native Atlantan who says he has always had Georgia Tech flaunted in his face as the school blacks weren't smart enough to attend, worked in the oil business in New Orleans until that industry's recent decline. He recently accepted a new position with the Georgia State Department of Transportation. Within 10 years of their 137 graduation, all five of McAshan's black teammates had sought and secured meaningful employment in metropolitan Atlanta. The lone exception was McAshan who, until October of 1989, was employed as a youth counselor in Gainesville, Florida.61 Twenty years ago, Eddie McAshan struggled through a marketing course at Georgia Tech and wrote a three-page letter to the professor, whom he believed to be a racist. The purpose, he now says, was to explain his inability to understand the cases being examined in the course and also to explain what it was like to be a black man in 1972. McAshan wrote: All my life I've been poor and most of all black. Just like every other animal on earth, I want my share of the happenings. If I can't date the grader in this course, maybe I can buy her. But by being black and poor, I can't do either one. When a man finds out there is no hope for him, he tends to do nothing at all. McAshan went on to explain his classroom earnestness and concluded by writing the professor, "I hope you know your hope is to understand me better than I understand the [ marketing ] cases. "62 The business world has been a struggle for McAshan. There have been false starts and dead ends, government jobs and sales jobs and too many unemployment checks. In January of 1989, he severed two fingertips on his right hand at a Gainesville [Florida] machine shop on his first day on the job. Life hasn't worked out as he had hoped it would in the glory days of football when he once buzzsawed Rice University by passing for 471 yards and six touchdowns. Now, Eddie McAshan is back in Atlanta with his five black 138 former teammates. He has seemingly, having accepted the past and hoping for the future. The two severed fingertips having mended enough to allow him to delicately turn the pages of a December 1970 issue of Ebonv: in which there is a story about a star black quarterback at Georgia Tech named Eddie McAshan. "A pioneer," Ebonv. called him. Every year or so, I'll bump into someone from Georgia Tech and they'll ask me, "Eddie, what really happened? So, I tell them. Then, I see the same person next year and he'll ask, So, Eddie, what really happened?" Eddie McAshan shook his head, "Its almost comical," he said. Meanwhile, McAshan is containing his hopes. "I believe that something good will come from this and that it will be beneficial to both black and white people," he said.63 CHAPTER IV NOTES 1John D. McCallum, Southeastern Conference Football (New York: Charles Scribner, 1980), pp. 210-28; Russ Bebb, The Big Orange: A Storv of Tennessee Football (Huntsville, Ala.: Strode Publishers, 1973), pp. 351-53; Paul W. Bryant, Bear: The Hard Life and Good Times of Alabama's Coach Bryant (Boston: Little and Brown, 1974), pp. 229-306. See also Olsen, The Mvth of Integration In American Sport (New York: Time-Life, 1968), pp. 94-96. 2McCallum, Southeastern, pp. 210-28; Bebb, Big Orange, pp. 351-53; Jesse Outlaw, Between The Hedge: A Story of Georgia Football (Huntsville, Ala.: Strode Publishers, 1973), pp. 118-42; Clyde Bolton, War Eagle: A Storv of Auburn Football (Huntsville, Ala.: Strode Publishers, 1973), pp. 181-89. See also, Olsen, Mvth. pp. 218-22. 3Jim Murray, "Alabama Can't Win The Big One," Los Angeles Times. 4 Nov. 1961, Sec. F, p. 17. Bob Goins, "Bryant Keeps Tide Adrift," Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. 12 Dec. 1961, Sec. E, p. 4. See also, Jack Olsen, "The Black Athlete," . 29 (July 12, 1968): 20-25. 4Bryant, Hard Life, pp. 300-411; Portia Scott, "The Old South," The Atlanta Daily World. 27 Sept. 1986, Sec. A, pp. 1-4. For further insight into the impact of politicians on integrated athletic competition, see Daniel M. Landers, ed., Social Problems in Athletics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976) and Phillip M. Hoose, Necessities: Racial Barriers In American Sports (New York: Random House, 1989). Bryant would later admit that one reason he, like Bradshaw at Kentucky, was hesitant in recruiting black players was because once recruited they had to play. But, if they were not good enough, he did not want all of those "NAACP folks snooping around and asking questions." Bryant expected trouble to occur when he had blacks who weren't playing, because they'll have fifty thousand other blacks telling them they're better than the white boy who's ahead of them. 5Bryant, Hard Life, pp. 309-11. 6Ibid., pp. 314-17. 7Ibid., pp. 283-88; Art Rust, An Illustrated History of the Black Athlete (Philadelphia: Sanders, 1968), pp. 187- 319. See also, Jules Tygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment:

139 140 Jackie Robinson and His Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). 8Jim Viondi, "Vols Roll Tide 41-14," The Atlanta Constitution. 11 Oct. 1971, Sec. D, p. 9. 9Paul W. Bryant, Bear Bv Himself (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), pp. 70-77. 10Bud Shaw, "Tide Humiliated 42-21,” The Atlanta Inquirer. 14 Sept. 1970, Sec. B, p. 6; Bryant, Hard Life, pp. 219-24. 11Bryant, Bear, pp. 221-23. 12Ibid. , pp. 226-29 13Ibid., p. 221; Charles Reeves, "Tide Rolls Canes: Bear Claws Mitchell," Miami Herald. 16 Mar. 1970, Sec. E, p. 9; McCallum, Southeastern. p. 228. Bryant said later that Wilbur Jackson was not a starter because he had made a mistake by playing him at the flanker position. When Bryant switched Alabama's offensive set to the wishbone, Jackson was converted to fullback. He averaged 7.9 yards per carry during his senior year and was picked in the first round of the NFL draft by San Francisco. According to Bryant, Wilbur was never good, but always great. After Alabama had signed John Mitchell on Sunday, Bryant was shocked to discover that Mitchell was scheduled to sign with the University of Miami on Monday. Mitchell was not only the first black starter at Alabama, but he was also the first black captain, the first black All-American and Alabama's first black coach. uDavid Samsong. The Foundations For Southern Attitudes (Springfield, 111.: Charles C. Thomas, 1983), pp. 143-59; Clifton Taulbert, "Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored," The Atlanta Daily World. 30 Oct. 1984, Sec. B, p. 1; William F. Winter, "Southerners Must Make It Together," Birmingham Morning Star. 2 June 1986, Sec. A, pp. 1-3. 15Howell Raines, "A Game within The Game," New Republic. 40 (December, 1983): 159-73; Bebb, Big Orange, pp. 353-55; Olsen, Mvth. pp. 94-95; Bryant, Hard Life, pp. 307- 10. wAlyce B. Walker, "Alabama: A Guide To The Deep South," The Atlanta Journal. 14 Nov. 1968, Sec. A, pp. 1-3; William H. Stewart, Alabama and Politics (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), pp. 231-46; George C. Wallace, Hear Me Out (New York: Crosset and Dunlap, 1968), pp. 187-213; Paul W. Bryant, On winning Football (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973), pp. 202-05; Alan Sverdlik, 141 "Historians Appraising Wallace's Prejudices," The Atlanta Tribune. 18 May 1987, Sec. B, p. 1; Raad Cawthon, "Bearing a Heavy Legacy," The Atlanta Constitution. 11 Dec. 1989, Sec. F, p. 10. Cawthon seeks to point out the political and social difficulties surrounding the desegregation of Alabama football during the 1960's by emphasizing the fact that current Alabama coach, , has nearly recruited more blacks during the past three years than former coach, Paul Bryant did during his entire tenure. The journalist attributes the return of Alabama's football program back to national prominence to the increase in the number of black players, but he also points out that the almost "all black" starting Alabama "22" (offensive and defensive teams) has caused some racial rumblings among the white Alabama consistency, which, in turn, has contributed to racial friction on campus. Clearly, Cawthon tends to suggest that having a predominantly black "Orange Bowl" bound team of 1989 has yet to defeat the university's racial intolerance of the 1960's. 17John Vaught, Rebel Coach (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1977), pp. 192-223; Gleen Sheeley, "Football's Southern Dynasty," The Atlanta Journal. 20 Oct. 1987, Sec. F, pp. 2-5. 1«Vaught, Rebel Coach, pp. 195-98; McCallum, Southeastern. pp. 418-27; Gary Pomevantz, "Where Football Is King," The Atlanta Constitution. 25 Nov. 1988. For an expanded discussion of racial practices surrounding Ole Miss football prior to the mid 1980's, see Willie Morris, The Courting of Marcus Dupree (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983). 19Morris, Courting, pp. 244-79. 20Ibid., pp. 312-13; Thomas R. Justen, "Dupre Thinks Big: Like Texas," Scott Countv Times. 9 Feb. 1983, Sec. F, p. 4. 21Vaught, Rebel Coach, pp. 195-261; Roy Hinton, "Sloan Leaves Ole Miss For Duke," The Atlanta Constitution. 17 Feb. 1981, Sec. D, p. 13. See Morris, Courting, for the best and most complete treatment of this subject. 22Bernard Fernandez, "Enough of the Worst of Us to Spread Around," Jackson Daily News. 11 Oct. 1981, Sec. B, . 3; John Loengard, "A Separate Path to Equality" Time 22 (October 29, 1967): 31-44. Frank White, "Blacks At White College: Learning To Cope," Ebonv. 40 (March 1985): 118-24; Faye Wattleton, "Black Student Presidents at White College," ibid.. 44 (March 1988): 19-23. For a more indepth discussion of racism and the desegregation of higher education in Mississippi, see Florence Mars, Witness In 142 Philadelphia (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1977). Even though Mars' work centers mainly around her efforts to fight racism in her hometown of Philadelphia, Mississippi, she spins off into higher education in Mississippi as having had a negative impact upon desegregation in the state. ^Morris, Courting, pp. 244-91. Mars, Witness, PP* 153-55; Ernest Reese, "Racial Makeup of Southeastern Conference Football Teams," The Atlanta Constitution. 18 Aug. 1985, Sec. D, p. 11; Joel Borders, "Pride Is Up As Prejudice Goes Down," Ebonv 42 (November 1986): 54-61. 24Morris, Courting, pp. 224-91; Bordes, "Pride," pp. 54-61; Jim Minter, "A Worrisome Return To Bigotry," The Atlanta Constitution. 13 Dec. 1986, Sec. B, p. 1. David Corvette, "No Need To Keep The Symbols of Oppression," The Atlanta Journal. 17 Nov. 1987, Sec. A, p. 19; Tom Turnipseed, "Storming the Citadel," The Atlanta Constitution. 13 Mar. 1988, Sec. B, p. 4. 25Bill Crommartie, There Goes Herschel (New York: Leisure Press, 1983), pp. 81-83; Paul Dolan, Let The Big Dog Bite (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), pp. 116- 17. 26McCallum, Southeastern, pp. 209-11; Morris, Courting, pp. 244-91; Bryant, Hard Life, p. 177-78; Hinton, "Sloan Leaves," p. 13; Hugh Cunningham "Recruiting With Integrity," The Atlanta Journal. 12 Oct. 1986, Sec. D, p. 8. 27Mars, Witness. pp. 159-67; Morris, Courting, pp. 244- 91; Virginia Hamilton, Mississippi: A Bicentennial History (New York: Norton, 1977), pp. 318-23; William F. Winter, "Half Way Home And A Long Way To Go," . 14 Aug. 1985, Sec. B, pp. 3-5. See also, John F. Rooney, Recruiting Game (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987). 28Mars, Witness, pp. 159-67; Morris, Courting, pp. 244- 91; Hamilton, Mississippi: pp. 318-23; Winter, "Half Way" pp. 3.5. ^Sowell Grennke, Football Rankings: College Teams In The Associated Press Pool (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1988); Pomevantz, "Football," pp. 8-9; Sheeley, "Football's Southern Dynasty," p. 2; Vaught, Rebel Coach, pp. 192-336; McCallum, Southeastern, pp. 244-91; Ed Hinton, "Rebels Returning To Old Ways," The Atlanta Constitution. 14 Nov. 1986, Sec. D, p. 3; Fred Zuga, "The Certified Athlete," Sports Illustrated. 13 (March 7, 1986): 16-23; Charles Seabrook, "Brewer: A University Should Behave As A Family, 143 Not A Corporation," The Oxford Daily Register. 29 July 1987, Sec. E, p. 10. 30GrennJce, FQPtfrall-Ranking?; pp. 6-22. 31Morris, Courting, pp. 244-91; Sensing, Foundations, pp. 217-23; Hinton, "Rebels," p. 3. See also, Tom McCollister, "Ole Hiss Fans Have Reasons To. Hope," The Atlanta Constitution. 21 Oct. 1986, Sec. E, p. 2. Bailey, Thomson, "Southern Football Illustrates Our Reality," The Orlando Sentinel. 8 Nov. 1988, Sec. A, p. 11. 32Dudley Percy, "Ole Hiss' Football Face Is Changing, Oxford Daily Register. 18 Sept. 1987, Sec. B, p. 6; Ed Hinton, "Brewer Off Trouble," The Atlanta Constitution. 14 Oct. 1989, Sec. E, p. 12. 33Horris, Courting. pp. 259-68; Percy, "Ole Miss," p. 6; Hinton, "Rebels," p. 3. While the influx of black players have clearly contributed to the resurgence of the Rebel's football fortunes, black residents of Oxford are not impressed with the progress made at Ole Hiss since James Meredith integrated the university in 1962. They contend that there are too few black students, professors and no blacks in positions of authority. Mars and Morris suggest that there is little or no interaction between blacks and whites in Oxford, a southern symbol of oppression to many of its current black citizens, where 25 years ago, they came face-to-face with mass violent resistance to integration. See also, Richard S. Roberts, A True Likeness: The Black South (New York: Dial, 1978). See additional material contained in Chapter V, which focuses upon Gary Turner, will also contribute to a better understanding of the complex relationships between blacks and whites at Ole Hiss and in Mississippi in general. wBobby Crespino, Hell For Leather Seventies (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1982), pp. 151-57; Zipp Newman, The Saga of Southern Football (Montgomery, Ala.: MB Publishing, 1979), pp. 211-14; Jack Olsen, A Shameful storv (New York: Time- Life Books, 1968), pp. 95-107; Terrence Moore, "You Can't Get Ahead If You Try," The Atlanta Constitution. 23 Aug. 1975, Sec. E, p. 10; Mark Bradley, "Football Revolution Comes South," The Atlanta Constitution. 9 July 1972, Sec. D, pp. 11-12. In reference to the plight of the three individuals to be discussed in this section, Eddie McAshan of Georgia Tech was the exception in anticipating that his collegiate football experience would lead to a career in the National Football League. 35Monte Piliawoski, The University of Southern Mississippi: Oppression and Racism In Academia (Boston: Ware 144 Company, 1982), pp. 109-72; Russell Nartlnes, Southern Servitude: Mississippi's Social and Economic Ills (New York: Hardcourt-Brace, 1986), pp. 327-46; Daniel Furfeld, The Political Economy of The Urban Ghetto (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), pp. 16-149; Clarke Randolph, Noble's House: A History of Mississippi State University Football (Starksville: Mississippi State University Press, 1983), pp. 201-07; Crespino, Hell, pp. 151-57. Randolph, Noble1 s. pp. 201-17; Andy Gothard, "I Ain't No Fieldhand: A Black Athlete Who Beat The System," Spaulding County Daily News. 4 Oct. 1981, Sec. B, p. 5. The economic lives of the black residents of Moss Point was made even more difficult because every season thousands of migrant workers, most of them black, found their way to Moss Point, competing for the few jobs of picking and hoeing. Money was scarce; in 1974, a citrus worker in the area was convicted of murdering one of his children after taking out a $2,000 life insurance policy. 37Richard Wilson, Interview, Baltimore, Maryland, 7 Sept. 1989; Randolph, Noble's. pp. 201-17; Gothard, "I Ain't No Fieldhand," p. 5 . It is plausible that Wilson's perception of black colleges could have been greatly influenced by a friend who attended a black college in Mississippi on a football scholarship. Wilson's friend informed him that he had been in college an entire semester and still didn't have a textbook and he had passed all of his courses. The college he was attending was the same one from which a number of Wilson's teachers had graduated. It is also important to note that Wilson surmised that to escape from the life-long task of picking and hoeing in the groves in 110 degree heat and loading watermelons until his back gave out, as was the case with both his parents, it was necessary to attend a white school. His attending MSU was not only because MSU was the only predominantly southern white university to offer him an athletic scholarship, but it also provided him, as he saw it, with an opportunity for a local back boy to be "somebody" in the shadow of the groves. 38Gothard, "I Ain't No Fieldhand," p. 5. After Wilson had gained some stature as a black intellectual on campus, various civil rights organizations and activists, including H. "Rap" Brown and Stokely Carmichael, contacted him about his silence on racism at MSU. Wilson's general response was that blacks couldn't solve their problems by shooting whites; and every man has a choice and he was going his own way. For a detailed discussion and comparative analysis of the protest movement against perceived racism by black athletes on predominantly white college campuses throughout 145 the nation during the 1960s and 1970s, see Harry Edwards, Revolt of the Black Athlete (New York, Free Press, 1969) and Jack Olsen, "A Shameful Story," Sports Illustrated. 29 (July 21, 1968). 39Ken Rappoport, The Commodore; A Storv of Vanderbilt Football (Huntsville, Ala.: Strode Publishers, 1984), pp. 162-214. Joe Earle, "Vandy Eager To Erase Some of Its History," Nashville Commercial Appeal. 11 Nov. 1986, Sec. B, p. 7; Haywood Strickland, "The Men Who Integrated 'Deep South' Football," The Atlanta Daily World. 4 Oct. 1980, Sec. A, p. 2. 40Godfrey Dillard Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 13 Oct. 1989; Samuel Wright, "Dillard To Go Commodore," Nashville Banner. 18 June 1975, Sec. A, p. 1; Jim Viondi, "Pearl Great Signs With Vanderbilt," The Atlanta Journal. 20 June 1975, Sec. C, p. 9. 41Dillard, Interview; Chris Benham, "Interview, Detroit, Michigan, 18 Oct. 1989. 42Dillard, Interview; Benham, Interview; McCallum, Southeastern. pp. 15-37; John Underwood, Bear (Boton: Little, Brown and Company, 1974), pp. 301-16; Thomas G. Dyer, The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1976), pp. 314-39. For general works on blacks and the desegregation of public facilities, see John Hope Franklin, From Slavery To Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Knoft, 1980); George W. Williams, The Long Road To Equality (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984). 43Dillard, Interview; Rappoport, Commodore. pp. 162- 214. ^Dillard, Interview; Earle, "Vandy Eager,” p. 7; Scott Shepard, "Where Are They Now," The Nashville Banner. 6 May 1987, sec. B, p. 4. 45Dillard, Interview; Rappoport, Commodore. pp. 162- 214; Morris Houghton, Vanderbilt University: A History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983), pp. 326-408. ^Dillard, Interview; Bill Campbell, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 18 Oct. 1989; Duane Riner, "Subtle Racism Color Life at Vanderbilt," The Atlanta Journal. 26 Nov. 1987, Sec. B, p. 4; Furman Bisher, "Final Citadel of Segregation," The Atlanta Constitution. 10 Jan. 1985, Sec. C , p . 13. 146 47Jim Minter, "An Unwitting Pawn In The Civil Rights Movement," The Atlanta Journal. 23 Nov. 1972, Sec. B, p. 7; Mark West, "Dreams Fade As Season Falter, ” The Atlanta News. 27 Nov 1972, Sec. A, p. 12; Ed Hinton, Pride Is Up As Prejudice Goes Down," Atlanta Magazine. 8 (December 1973): 39-45; Doug Monroe, "11 Rights Advocates Seized," Memphis Commercial Appeal. 29 Nov. 1972, Sec. A, p. 3; Furman Bisher, "Jackson's Xs and Ox," The Atlanta Constitution. 15 Dec. 1972, Sec. D, p. 4. ^Eddie McAshan, Interview, Gainsville, Florida, 12 July 1989; Bisher, "Jackson's," p. 4. See also, Kevin Graham, "Time On His Hands," The Miami Herald. 30 Mar. 1986, Sec. F, p. 2. 49Harold Lamar, "Jackets Lose Stinger," The Atlanta Daily World. 31 Nov. 1972, Sec. D, p. 3; Jim Minter, "Rambling From the Wreckage," The Atlanta Constitution. 10 Dec. 1972, Sec.- C, p. 13; Randy Rhino, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 17 July 1989; Bill Fulcher, Interview, Augusta, Georgia, 18 August 1989; McAshan, Interview. Published reports (The Atlanta Constitution and The Atlanta Tribune) surface that McAshan already had received, then sold his four tickets and had asked for additional tickets. McAshan denied the reports. 50Minter, "Unwitting," p. 7; idem., "Rambling," p. 13; Lamar, "Jackets,” p. 3; McAshan, Interview; Bill Fulcher, Interview, August, Georgia, 27 Aug. 1989. 51Cleo Johnson, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 21 July 1989; Joe Harris, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 27 Sept. 1989; Greg Horne, Interview, New Orleans, Louisiana, 5 November 1989; Edward Bouie, "Now The Game Is In Our Control," Southside Insider. 9 Dec. 1972, Sec. A, p. 1. Mark Bradley, "Time For Trouble Maker to Make More Trouble," The Atlanta Constitution. 21 Nov. 1972, Sec. F, p. 6; Chico Renfroe, "Its Nothing But Modern Day Slavery," The Atlanta Daily world. 8 Dec. 1972, Sec. B, p. 6. Paschal *s Restaurant is the prominent gathering place for Atlanta's black's political and economic movers and shakers. 52Jesse Hill, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 15 Oct. 1989. See also, Bouie, "Now The Game," p. 1; Bradley, "Time For Trouble," p. 6; Furman Bisher, "What Price Glory," 2tl£ Atlanta Constitution. 5 Feb. 1989, Sec. C, p. 2. Donnie Moore was the black pitcher for California, who supposedly was ostracized and blackballed to the minor league for having served-up the home run pitch which enabled Boston to win the 1986 American League Championship. Moore, subsequently, drifted into a state of depression, attempted to murder his wife and then committed suicide. 147 53Johnson, Interview; Harris, Interview; Horne, Interview; Monroe, "11 Rights," p. 3; Portia Scott, "Abernathy, NAACP To Give Beale Street The Blues," The Atlanta Daily World. 17 Dec. 1972; Gail Hagans, "Injunction Sought By Bowl Officials," Memphis Commercial Appeal. 15 Dec. 1972, Sec. A, p. 3; Mark Bradley, "Rev. Jackson Huddles With McAshan," The Atlanta Constitution. 17 Dec. 1972, Sec. D, p. 3. Coach Fulcher reportedly allowed the black players to wear armbands as a gesture rather than compromise, but some of his assistant coaches were upset at the armbands, according to Horne. 54McAshan, Interview; Hagan, "Injunction," p. 3; Harris, Interview; Rudy Allen, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 24 Aug. 1989; Johnson, Interview, Randy Rhino, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 11 Sept. 1989; Jimmy Robinson, Interview, Marietta, Georgia, 14 Mar. 1989. 55McAshan, Interview; Bradley, "Rev. Jackson," p. 3; Bisher, "Jackson's," p. 4. See also, Minter, "Unwitting Pawn," p. 7. 56Jesse Jackson, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia 13 Jan. 1990; Sverdlik, "Historians," p. 1; Horne, Interview. For Jackie Robinson, see Tygiel, Baseball's, pp. 57-183. It is worthy to note that Rev. Jackson, while in Atlanta in conjunction with the 60th birthday celebration and the fourth annual national holiday of Martin Luther King, Jr., during the period of this interview, was also proceeding to Montgomery, Alabama for a social visit with ailing, George Wallace at the former Governor's request. Rev. Jackson also pointed out that had Dr. King had been alive during the McAshan incident, Dr. King probably would not have gotten involved because he more or less would have considered the matter to be a local concern and not a formidable challenge to any definitive, constitutional rights of all black Americans. When asked how was he drawn into the McAshan affair, Jackson indicated that he felt that his input was needed and requested to meet with the black players. 57Jim Viondi, "Tech Prevails 31-30," The Atlanta Constitution. 19 Dec. 1972, Sec. C, p. 1; Horne, Interview. According to Horne, white players on both teams thanked the black players for competing in the Liberty Bowl. Jim Stevens, McAshan's replacement at quarterback, who had thrown three touchdown passes, was named the Most Valuable Player. Horne indicated that he was upset to see Stevens receive three of the biggest trophies that he had ever seen. Seemingly, Horne felt that, even though Eddie McAshan did not play in the game, if ever there was a star, McAshan was it. And those trophies belonged to the guy with the beautiful cadence at the line of scrimmage, the guy who 148 could make the ball hum, and the guy people came just to see practice. Clearly, during my interview with McAshan, he also felt that he was responsible for Tech being in the Liberty Bowl and the fact that Stevens was voted MVP continues to disturb him. 58Shawn Jones, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 3 Dec. 1989. 59Jones, Interview, McAshan, Interview. 60Johnson, Interview; McAshan, Interview; Fulcher, Interview; Jackson, Interview; Hosea Williams, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 6 Feb. 1990; and Homer Rice, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 10 Mar. 1990. Having questioned Williams about Rev. Jackson's role in the McAshan affair, Williams implied that Rev. Jackson was promoting himself on two fronts. He wanted to be the next Martin Luther King, Jr. and eventually the President of the United States. Williams reminded me that Rev. Jackson, of course, ran for President in 1988; and received 29 percent of the vote in the Democratic primaries, including the votes of all five black members of the 1972 Georgia Tech varsity football team. 61McAshan, Interview; Harris, Interview; Rice, Interview; Gary Pomerantz, "Time Hasn't Erased Mastery, Mystery of Eddie McAshan, the QB Who Walked Out of Practice Into History," The Atlanta Constitution. 5 Nov. 1988, Sec. G, pp. 1-2. “ Furman Bisher, "Once Upon A Time In the Wreck," The Atlanta Constitution. 14 Apr. 1990, sec. C, p. 2. Mark Bradley, "GTAA to Cite McAshan," The Atlanta Journal. 12 Jan. 1990, Sec. D, p. 3; Rice, Interview. “ Eddie McAshan, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 16 February 1990; Reginald Parker, "In Many Ways, Eddie McAshan Is The Jackie Robinson of Southern Football," Ebonv. 35 (December, 1970): 23-27. It is worthy to note that Dr. Harry W. Brown, a white, prominent Atlanta chiropractor and Georgia Tech alumni, has employed McAshan as a representative of his firm in public relations. CHAPTER V FOOTBALL RAISES THE NATURAL ART OF GETTING-TO-KNOW A. THE OLE MISS NETWORK

At training tables and social functions, whether on or off-campus, throughout the SEC, blacks and whites still tend to congregate separately. For the most part, little is thought about it. It's just the way blacks relate together, and the way whites relate together. When players arrive at Florida as freshmen, blacks are paired with blacks and whites are paired with whites a roommates. Like most SEC schools, Florida's policy of "black on black" is rooted in the belief that other adjustments are difficult enough for black players as it is. One SEC coach said, that the sad thing is that blacks segregate themselves. "I'm not going to get upset over it because that's the wrong psychology, and because other coaches who have lived with this longer than I have said its the same everywhere. I won't make an issue of it as long as they get along with everybody, and so far they do." Similarly, the director of a racial improvement project on another SEC campus commented, "Black students look to themselves for support. Subsequently, they tend to isolate themselves. There appears to be no definitive measures to indicate that blacks and whites even 149 150 try to become friends but its not racism, its simply indifference."1 Every year, throughout the SEC, there are two or three cases where black and white players, on and off the football field, help each other to dispense with the time-honored custom of separate and unequal. There's a sense of unity. They stick together in the face of adversity. If there is prejudice, no one shows it. When Silvester Croom, a black center for the Crimson Tide, said in 1973 that, "Blacks on this team love the white guys as much as they do the black guys," Bear Bryant supposedly responded, "Silvester, you just made me feel very proud and I have felt for some time that our players were on the right track."2 Sid Salter was never destined for a football career in the SEC, but the way he approaches what he does for a living now was shaped profoundly by his seasons as a lineman for the Philadelphia (Miss.) High School Tornadoes. As publisher of the Scott Countv Times, he had seen truths that would make him the socially liberal newspaperman he is today. Salter's parents did not teach him malice, but at school, he was exposed to the views of other white children and in Southern white society, white children were generally raised to think that blacks are just inherently inferior. By the time Salter reached the integrated varsity football team in 1975, whites made jokes about black players on the team not being able to remember the plays. However, Salter 151 insisted that when you get out there on the football field and all of a sudden you have the football gear strapped on, when you are in the huddle where blacks and whites were passing a water bottle around, when its third down and you got to get a first down, you find out what's true and what's not.3 From the stands, this probably did not mean a lot and probably in the huddle did not mean a lot until years later when they had time to think about it. This was the case with Salter as whites were getting use to the physical closeness with blacks whom they had been raised to shun and avoid and found out some of that old dogma was just not true. It is unusual for football players to walk out of an experience like playing a big game and the closeness one feels to his teammates in the huddle when you have done something together that was good, something you have good memories of, and continue to live with those old stereotypes. Normally, one has to go - the good memories or the stereotypes. By and large, it has been the stereotypes that have fallen. Where sports has had an effect is on each generation that has gone through the process and where the athlete has learned to accept, enjoy, appreciate, and admire other human beings who happen to be black in a situation where he is forced to trust people like brothers. Salter stated that he did not know in 1975 that what we were doing was going to have any impact on my moral values as an adult. What I knew was that we might get a first down and win the game. You get down to the gut level. Down to winning and losing. Being happy and unhappy. However, in the process, you are transformed from a situation where black and white kids would not even walk down the same side of the street, and have dirt clod wars that were in earnest, to a point where you had a group of white kids blocking for a black kid and taking it deadly serious. It didn't matter who did the blocking and who ran the ball, as long as the effort was successful. And that carries over into life." Historian David Sansing has described the experiences of blacks and whites together under the South's beloved umbrella, football, as "that great getting-to-know."4 At the University of Mississippi in Oxford, near the edge of campus, there's a place called "The Clubhouse" where a lot of black players hang out, but several white players will go out there, too. Even some white girls will go there sometimes. It's no big deal. But this is the same Oxford, Mississippi, which in 1962 was occupied by 30,000 federal troops to quell riots surrounding the registration of James Meredith as Ole Miss' first black student. Two and a half decades after Meredith's enrollment, the university now recruits some of the best and brightest black students in the South. In 1988, 563 of the 9,272 students registered were black. There were 1,523 black alumni among the 60,000 graduates since 1963. Although 35 percent of Mississippi residents are black, the university's black enrollment stands at only six percent and of the 474 faculty members only 12 are black. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that Ole Miss would love to have more black students and faculty members and is actively trying to recruit them, but this institution is competing against everyone else in the state and region, which makes it a little tougher to attract the best and brightest all the time. Black students have become more visible on the 139-year-old campus, which honors its Southern history with a Confederate Cemetery and a street called Rebel Drive. Ten of the 11 starting defensive players on the 1988 football team were black. Twelve of 186 marching band musicians, including a member of the Rebelettes drill team, were black.5 Whenever William Faulkner would ride his mule through the town square in Oxford during the 1950's, espousing the virtues of racial harmony, the white citizenry, jeeringly, proclaimed him to be insane. Now when Gary Turner, Chief of Detectives in West Point, Mississippi, visits Biloxi on the Gulf Coast, he spends the night at the home of one of his best friends from college, Tom Jennings. When Turner is in the state capitol, Jackson, he stays with another friend, David Campbell. Such friendships have been developing for half a century among Ole Miss football teammates, except there’s a small difference for Turner, Jennings, and Campbell. Turner is black. Campbell and Jennings are 154 white, and both went through high school in all-white private academies.6 No school has a closer network of alumni— both athletes and non-athletes— than Ole Miss. For decades, the older, established alumni of the university have helped new graduates secure jobs and establish themselves in society. But for decades, this traditional "ole Miss network" was limited to whites. Now, with Gary Turner as the catalyst, Ole Miss' black alumni are beginning to come back and participate in the traditional ways, including the network process of job-finding. Turner, the third black football player ever signed by Ole Miss (1973), is now a member of the University of Mississippi Alumni Board, as well as the most powerful faction of the athletic board, the M-Club Alumni Board.7 While a student at Ole Miss, Turner was always cognizant of his presence in an environment where ten years earlier tear-gas clouds wafted through the trees and shots rang out in the darkness. He also realized that there were lingering scars engraved and opinions expressed on this campus that James Meredith integrated and what happened here was just rabble-rousers, outsiders trying to stir up a hornet's nest. Concurrently, he encountered white students who had never before known blacks. Turner contends that there was little or no interaction between blacks and whites, but the university did not want it to get out because people would start to get concerned and might not believe all they were hearing about how great thing were on campus. Blacks felt out of place because most of the time there were only one or two of them in a class. He heard complaints about white professors who never had time to help black students outside the classroom. Turner indicated that black students would socialize by themselves near the student union lobby and eat together in a no-smoking area. Other blacks complained of isolation, loneliness and a lack of role models at the predominantly white institution. Turner and other black students confronted the administration over the issues of too few black students and faculty members and too few blacks in position of authority. Like many predominantly white schools throughout the nation, Turner said, "What was needed at Ole Miss, point blank, was a class in "Sensitivity 101" to teach white students and instructors how to act and treat their fellow black students. It is also quite clear that Turner, while in college, realized that because he was a football player doors were opened to him that would not have been open for the average black student socially. However, he always tried to take some other black student through the door with him. You could say that he wasn't selfish with it.8 Turner was a preseason All-American selection going into his senior season, 1976, and would have been a first- round selection in the National Football League draft, but 156 an injured knee that year finished his football career. Nevertheless, he graduated with a degree in criminal justice. Kenny Dill, an All-American center at Ole Miss in the 1960s, when the team was all-white, had followed Turner's career. Dill is the mayor of West Point, Mississippi, population 10,000 but in a mini-metropolitan cluster with Columbus and starkville for a total population of nearly 80,000. A native of Sulligent, Alabama, just across the state line, Turner decided to accept Dill's offer of a job as a detective. With friends in virtually every police department in the state, Turner has been able to recommend and help place qualified Ole Miss criminal justice graduates, black and white, in numerous jobs. Some of the black officers Turner has recruited for his own department— which usually numbers about 20 officers— have moved on to positions with the Mississippi Highway Patrol, once the symbol of racial oppression in the eyes of Mississippi blacks. Others have moved on to the state's Department of Wildlife and Conservation.9 Turner chose to stay in small-town Mississippi even though he has had a lot of opportunities to go with other agencies. The Federal Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have as recent as 1987 showed interest in him, but Turner hasn't seen fit to take any of these higher paying jobs. He states, "I've been able to stay close to home, and close to the university. As long as I can see myself making 157 a contribution, I feel good about that." Seeing how well his police agency connections, which began with former Ole Miss teammates, were working in placement of blacks, Turner realized the process could be applied to all fields. Recently, he and Rose Jackson, a Memphis businesswoman and the other black member of the Ole Miss Alumni Board, recommended that the university hire a liaison to find black Ole Miss alumni and bring them back to the university family. What both the university and Turner felt needed to be done was to have somebody reach out to the black alumni and say, "Hey, we want you to come back. We want you to participate." As a result, more blacks have plugged-in to the Ole Miss network. The point is being gotten across and blacks are taking advantage of the system. Ole Miss has black alumni in virtually every field now, including doctors, lawyers, journalists, and engineers.10 Turner sees nothing wrong with the fact that playing football opened the door for him and indeed has "planted a seed" for all black Ole Miss alumni. "I've had a lot of people tell me I'm here because of the mayor," Turner says, "but, I have no problem with that. I'm glad to have a job, any way you can get it. That's part of the network. That's the way our society is. Some people can get in because daddy owns the company, and some people get in because of who they are. So, you have to get in any way you can, and then remember that somebody else is still out there and that 158 you have to bring then in with you." Turner's membership on both the alumni and M-Club boards is no small step. Yet people respect him. It's not easy to get respect from the white community and keep the respect of the black community, but Turner has. In West Point, Turner was accepted immediately by the white community because he was a former football player and by the black community because he is black, and young. However, blacks do not envision him as a panacea for the continuing racial strife at Ole Miss.11 Turner would be the last person to say that everything is fine at Ole Miss because it isn't. There are still problems and according to Turner they will always be a part of Ole Miss' existence. He reasons that there will never be a full solution to a problem of this nature. Turner believes that what it takes is constant concern and attention, and he also feels that the university is generally committed to doing the right things. For examples, he cites the annual symposium held on campus on race relations to commemorate the enrollment of James Meredith as the university's first black student and to demonstrate the positive changes that had taken place at Ole Miss such as the black student union. In addition, there are the Black Campus Ministry, Society of Black Engineering Students, African Student Union, Black American Law Student Association, National Association for the Advancement of 159 Colored People Chapter (NAACP) and five sororities and fraternities.12 Ole Miss Chancellor, Gerald Turner, admits that the university has racial problems, but none worst than any other predominantly white university. He contends that black and white students take part equally in academics, sports and various other campus functions. Ever mindful of that day in 1962, when it took an order from President John F. Kennedy, 15 hours of rioting, two deaths, 350 injuries and more than 30,000 federal troops to enroll one black student, Chancellor Turner concedes that one of the paramount events in the history of Ole Miss can not afford to be ignored. However, he is quick to indicate that the interest of the Ole Miss administration is focused on the broad impact of what integration has meant to the South, where the South is and where it is going. According to the Chancellor, the idea is not to lose sight of the big picture because Ole Miss happened to be so close to one of the most dramatic events of the civil rights struggle.13 Few current black students at Ole Miss were born when Meredith arrived on campus in 1962, but many say they know of his struggles and some are still carrying Meredith's torch. Even though the university is considering discontinuing the Meredith commemorative activities, a bid from an all-black fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma, to move onto fraternity row was rejected and black students still 160 overwhelmingly continue to socialize amongst themselves a decade after the departure of Gary Turner. Aside from occasional teasing themselves about being at a institution that didn't want them twenty-five years ago, few blacks mention racial strife.14 The University of Mississippi, those words, once a symbol to Southern blacks of a land Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., characterized as "sweltering in the heat of oppression," can now be entered by blacks without armed guards. Nevertheless, many black students still wouldn't consider attending Ole Miss because of its racial problems over the years. Marcus Dupree is a case in point. A native Mississippian and resident of Philadelphia, Dupree was born six months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and one month before the Freedom Summer of 1964 when three civil rights advocates were murdered and buried in an earthen dam a stone's throw from his home. He was a toddler in a decade which begin with the great vision of John F. Kennedy. The Civil Rights Act was moving through Congress and the Voting Rights Act was passed under the prodding of Lyndon Johnson. On the morning of his birth, the headline in the Neshoba Democrat read: 1,749-gallon whiskey still seized in barn, despite the fact that the original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan proclaimed their presence in Philadelphia by burning six crosses in black neighborhoods in the night before.15 161 The years of young Marcus Dupree's life had witnessed the dreadful entities of the 1960s. He grew up attributing the silence at Ole Miss to a racist system which in the interest of self-preservation dictated public toleration of the excesses of the vicious and the ignorant. Dupree commented: In the wake of the James Meredith riots, there were no men of courage at Ole Miss who would stand up for the large community in the name of racial equality. Naturally, you can't compare racism now to what it was in the 1960s. But it's still there. Being black still has its drawbacks. The naked truth is that a black student at Ole Miss has a certain place, separate and inferior to that of a white student.15 By Dupree's senior year in high school, many considered him the best high school football player ever to play in Mississippi. Joe Tervanova, the most highly respected source of information on college football recruiting in the country, had already named him the supreme prospect in America. His biography, The Courting of Marcus Dupree, was off the press before his senior prom. Inside The Blue Chios, a national football publication, ran his picture on its front cover, as a football franchise and Ole Miss bridled the bit. For Ole Miss, he was not only the salve to sooth its sagging football fortunes, but an affirmation of the progress made in race relations since federal marshals escorted James Howard Meredith to a Rebel football game there twenty-five years ago. Ole Miss' recruiting of Dupree was particularly vigorous. Rumors were generated that Ole 162 Miss had offered him a condominium, placed his uncle on the payroll, guaranteed him an $80,OOO-a-year job if he suffered a career-ending injury on the football field, gave him a gold watch and established a slush fund to entice him to the environs of Oxford. Despite the Rebels' rainbow sign, Dupree knew that if he broke his leg and never played again, he would be just another "nigger boy" from a small town in Mississippi. He also concluded that Ole Miss' participation in the "Marcus Dupree Appreciation Day" was merely the white establishment's use of him as a symbol of a "good nigger." Subsequently, he could not relate his athletic prowess and recognition to any measurable gains in racial equality and human justice by attending Ole Miss. Long before Dupree's time, the best black players in Mississippi had shunned Ole Miss. As racism filled his past, as it did his present condition, Dupree went Southwest to the .17 In Marcus Dupree's second season at Oklahoma, he was mentioned as a leading candidate for the , but the realities of this challenge, of the swift national fame, of a young black from a small Mississippi town, of the pressure on him to succeed as no running back ever had, was accentuated by a cover on him in Inside The Blue Chipper. While the Jackson papers, The Jackson Clarion-Ledqer and The Jackson Daily News, cited his work with white and black children, his self-discipline as an athlete and his role in 163 the emerging decency of his town, Sports Illustrated portrayed him as a sulking, malicious, prima donna who barely got along with coach Switzer, who could care less about school, and who would likely leave Oklahoma after one year. Such exigencies would mount for Dupree and he departed from Oklahoma after his second year. It was thought that he would enroll at Southern Mississippi, but instead he signed with the New Orleans Breakers of the now defuncted United States Football League. In 1984, he suffered a knee injury and did not play football again until 1990 when he became a member of the .18 Whether Dupree's return to football was for financial reasons or an attempt to recapture the glory days of old, he remains a controversial figure in his hometown. Amid his abbreviated tenure at Oklahoma, knee injury in the pro rank and subsequent return to Philadelphia, there was animosity among some in the white community. Some felt that he was lazy, spoiled, that he was not as good as his clippings. In a county where a young black athlete touched all aspects of his town, a town which had once been scourged in fear and blood, here he's still an ignominious brute of a black from that section of town where the lights grow dimmer with the darkness. Congruently, there is still some muttering about a kid from 204 David Street tooling around town in a Mercedes. Philadelphia's black and white armchair quarterbacks who supposedly knew he would never amount to 164 anything have thrown him out, so to speak. This mentality is clearly indicative of the premise that Dupree was more than a symbol of what was happening; he was also a symbol of what had happened. Despite the fact that he gave the town a rallying point that was positive, and publicity that was positive, there are doubts that the football stardom of Dupree had any serious effects on the attitudes of what is called "Old Philadelphia." If Dupree impacted upon racial attitudes in the town, it was mainly among those who have participated in desegregated sports, and not so much on the "Deep South" in the stands.19 Nevertheless, the history of racism at Ole Miss has not stopped some blacks from attending. They tend to believe that it is their responsibility to turn things around. Anthony Butts, a freshman from Meridian, said he enrolled because he wanted to help dispel the school's reputation of racial troubles. However, he added that it does not mean that whites should sit back and never try to change things. Most blacks said they chose Ole Miss for future job opportunities and the social advantages of belonging to a school known by some as the "Country Club" of the Southeast. Ronda Gooden, a graduate student from Clarksdale, selected Ole Miss because it was close and affordable. According to black senior, Valerie Adams, she gets to do what she wants to do without any problems, feels that she belongs there and is getting a good education like she planned to do in the 165 first place. Ironically, shortly after she moved into her dorm room, her white roommate moved out in protest.20 Gary Turner contends the news media is partly to blame for some ill feelings. He implied that many campus events are reported with a racial slant. For example, the time a black male cheerleader refused to carry the Rebel flag in 1983, or the time irate white students and a group of outside agitators, believed to be Ku Klux Klan members, walked out on a speech by Meredith, interrupting the twentieth anniversary activities. According to Turner, the expression of students implied that they have different priorities. What happened during the Civil Rights Movement was before most of them were born. It was a long time ago. White students there now are interested in having a good time and in where they are going to be able to get jobs when they graduate. Things have changed. Now, there is new resentment about civil rights because to them it means they are going to have to compete with blacks for jobs. This resentment, this fear, can somewhat be alleviated by networking. It is, in reality, a medium through which blacks and whites can and hopefully will work for the good of each other. Ole Miss, according to Turner, is an icon on the road the Civil Rights Movement traveled and must be venerated by both blacks and whites, however unpaved it may be. Lest our feet stray from the path which has brought us thus far on our way.21 166 B. NOTHING UNUSUAL, EXCEPT SIZE The lights of Bryant-Denny Stadium on the campus of the University of Alabama were off now, and it was pouring rain. Ben McCurdy, an Auburn-bound linebacker, had just played in the Alabama High School All-Star football game of 1982. He ran to his pickup truck, started it and decided to sit for a moment before beginning the long drive from Tuscaloosa. As he wiped his face with a towel, McCurdy noticed a huge figure standing outside the gate to the dressing room. The wind was whipping the sheets of rain now. That guy must be getting wet, McCurdy thought, and he put the truck in gear and pulled up to the gate. "Gerald!" MuCurdy hollered. "Get in." The passenger's side of the pickup sagged as the giant Gerald Williams, 6-feet 4, 270 pounds, climbed in. "Thanks, man. My mom was supposed to pick me up half an hour ago. I don't know where she is," said Williams. "We'll sit here and wait on her for awhile," said McCurdy, tuning the radio to a country music station. As they talked, and the rain blew against the windshield, it struck Ben McCurdy, age 18, that this was the first conversation he had ever had with a black person.22 For 100 miles along the sprawling Sand Mountain area of northern Alabama, there are no blacks. McCurdy had only seen black people on television, and in person on a handful of occasions in a shopping mall in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Before he'd met Gerald Williams, a defensive tackle also 167 bound for Auburn, during practice for the all-star game, McCurdy's only words to a black, ever, had been "thank you" to a checkout clerk in the mall in Chattanooga. All his life, McCurdy had figured there was something strange, different about blacks. Now, there seemed to be nothing very unusual, except size, about the guy sitting beside him. They drove to a service station and Williams phoned his mother. There had been a mixup. She would not be able to pick him up. Ben McCurdy thought for a moment and then said, "Hey, you can just come home with me. I'm reporting to Auburn in a few days myself.” Gerald Williams glanced at him. The freshness of the idea went unspoken. "All right," said Williams. "I'll just do that."23 In McCurdy's family there was no malice toward blacks, just a lack of personal knowledge. Among some of their neighbors, there was prejudice. The McCurdys decided to barbecue a whole pig on their farm that weekend and invite the neighbors. Most of them had never met any blacks. "Gerald was so much bigger than any of my friends," McCurdy says, "that at first they were scared. But then they got to knowing him and got to liking him. Several of my friends were, I guess you would call prejudiced, but they kind of had a different point of view after they met Gerald." From the all-star game through Auburn's preseason drills was a deluge of experience for McCurdy himself. In two weeks time, he went from never having spoken to a black, to having 168 one come to his house, then to living with blacks in the athletic dorm. At first, McCurdy didn't even know how to act around a black, but he came to find out that they're not different from anybody else.24 A year later, McCurdy was in a food store late one night, when he spotted Bo Jackson, the introverted kid from the metro-Birmingham ghetto who was blossoming into a brilliant running back. Jackson had on cut-off jeans and cowboy boots. "Doggoned if you ain't the biggest redneck I've ever seen," McCurdy told Jackson. "Look at all that get up you got on. Don't you ever call me a redneck again." From that moment, Jackson and Ben McCurdy were close friends. Soon after that, Jackson was standing in back of Sewell Hall, Auburn's athletic dorm, and saw Trey Gainous, a white from Cairo, Georgia, shooting arrows off the back balcony with a hunting bow. Jackson, a deer hunter by hobby, was fascinated. Unlike McCurdy, Gainous had gone to high school with blacks, but that was about it. In Sewell Hall, though, living everyday with black players, Gainous, had become comfortable in the knowledge that there's not much difference between himself and a "Bo" Jackson. Jackson, with his uncanny eye-hand coordination, almost instantly became a marksman with the hunting bow. When bow-hunting season opened in Alabama, he and Gainous went hunting together. They've been hunting and fishing together ever since.25 169 Gainous, a senior at Auburn in 1987, believes his own experiences, taken from the quintessential Deep South town of Cairo, Georgia, has helped change attitudes among older, segregation-steeped whites. "Everyone is always wanting to know what Bo's really like, just because of the athletic ability he has," says Gainous. The older whites initial curiosity was raised with the exposure guys like Herschel Walker and Bo got on television and newspaper interviews. But I've had a lot of older white people ask me, what are black people like, in general? I've told them what black people are really like, and gotten all the fallacies they had about black people out of their minds.26 As for the country whites in the Sand Mountain area of northern Alabama, who had never met a black until Ben McCurdy brought Gerald Williams home with him, "When I'd go home after that," says McCurdy, "They'd ask when you gonna bring Gerald back?"27

C. HERSCHEL WALKER MADE A GOOD BLACK HERO Willis Walker and Christine Taylor grew up born and bred Southerners, children of poor black Georgia tenant farmers who raised their families during the hardtimes of the 1930s. It was a time when much of the rural South was without electricity and indoor plumbing. It was also a time when blacks and whites were kept separate or segregated in public facilities. It would be more than a generation 170 before "COLORED" and "WHITE" signs would cone down from lunch counters, parks, drinking fountains and restrooms.28 On March 3, 1962, in Augusta, the city best known as the home of the Masters Golf Tournament, the fifth born of seven children to Willis and Christine Walker drew his first breath. Herschel was born at a time when significant social changes were sweeping across America. That year John F. Kennedy was President. He had championed racial equality and made it an important issue during his campaign. Kennedy declared: The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much of completing college. It was also in 1962 that John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth and Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers met stubborn resistance by police and white counter protesters during civil rights marches and sit-ins across the nation.29 Racial segregation was also the law and custom in organized sports throughout the South. In Wrightsville, Georgia, Herschel*s hometown, a local newspaper published in 1940 an advance story about a football game between teams from two all-black high schools. As was then common, the article spelled out the seating arrangements: a large crowd of white and colored fans are expected at this game...a special section will be reserved for whites. This was eight 171 years after the United States Supreme Court outlawed racially segregated "separate but equal” public schools.30 Wrightsville, Georgia, is one of those out-of-the-way places that looks like a scene from "Gone With the Wind." Host of the town's 2,500 residents go to work early on the farms or in small shops or small factories. They live in old frame homes built in the early 1900s or in drafty bungalows. Life moves slowly in Wrightsville. You can't go bowling or see first-rate movies unless you drive to Sandersville or Dublin, all about twenty miles away. Social life in Wrightsville revolves mainly around the churches, the electronic-game arcades on the square, or the bus rides to and from school. As someone remarked, "The biggest thing to happen to Wrightsville was when they got the Dairy Queen and everybody would go there and sit on the hoods of their cars." If you're young in Wrightsville, you achieve status among your friends by owning a car, being an athlete, or playing in the band at Johnson County High School. And then, you either choose to stay on the farm or get away.31 It wasn't until the mid-1960s that the COLORED and WHITE signs came down in Wrightsville and in other Southern communities. Not until after President Kennedy was slain in Dallas. Not until after Martin Luther King, Jr., went to Washington and gave a speech heard around the world. Today, Wrightsville's schools are integrated but its churches and residential sections are not. Blacks, who comprise 37 172 percent of Wrightsville*s population, as well as about one- third of the 3,600 residents of Johnson County, live in scattered neighborhoods. One black neighborhood is called "The Quarter," a tern that dates back to slavery. This is the setting where Herschel Walker grew up — close to God, family, and countryside, but far away from everywhere else. When you're a child, five miles away can mean far away. Herschel spent most of his life out there in the wide-open spaces around home, five miles down the road from Wrightsville. That means fie miles from Outlaw's Grocery, Miller's Restaurant, and the Dairy Queen. Five miles from Charlie Walker's Service Station and from Paul's Bait and Tackle Shop. Five mile from everywhere.32 Like others in the rural South, many people in Johnson County work long, hard hours and want their children to do well, which isn't easy now with new distractions and conveniences, like fast food, loud music, video games, and pushbutton gadgets. Some families in Johnson County even look upon football as unnecessary. They want their children home after school— not kicking footballs, but plowing soybeans or picking cotton. When Herschel wasn't running footraces up the long dirt road from the highway to the house, he worked on Rex Jackson's farm down the road. He did yard work, cleanup, and odd jobs. "Herschel would work all day on this farm and never talk," Rex Jackson's wife, 173 Marguerite, said. "In this part of rural Georgia many people say Herschel was raised right."33 At school, Herschel was part of a historic change in Johnson County tradition. Although the Supreme Court had outlawed segregation in the public schools in 1954, Wrightsville's schools remain segregated until the late 1960s. If you were white, you went to Wrightsville Elementary and Wrightsville High. If you were black, you went to Doc Kemp Elementary and Doc Kemp High. Desegregation was finally achieved throughout Georgia with relatively little turmoil. In Wrightsville, whites and blacks first went to Wrightsville Elementary together, then on to Johnson County High School (formerly Wrightsville High). Herschel*s sister, Veronica, was the first in the family to attend school from the start with white children. Herschel was the second. They and their classmates were called the "Integration Babies."34 Herschel began first grade in the fall of 1968, an ordinary year in Wrightsville, but a year of horror and change elsewhere. Robert Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles just two months after Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed by an assassin's bullet in Memphis. Thousands of young Americans were dying on the battlefields and in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia. Lyndon Johnson decided to leave politics, and the voters chose Richard Nixon for President. But, way out on Rex Jackson's farm, way out there, south of 174 town, five miles from nowhere, it didn't seem to mater much to Herschel, because he could get out and be free. There was time to stop and smell the honeysuckle, and his mind didn't wonder off much.35 In the Wrightsville Headlight, late in the summer of 1978, a fellow names Herschel Hall advertised worms for sale. Somebody put 1,025 hogs on the auction block. This was nothing unusual, but there were some changes, including at the school were the Johnson County Trojans opened practice for the 1978 season. They had a new head coach and a new tailback, Herschel Walker. Herschel was a converted fullback, who at 6-foot-l and 205 pounds, was bigger than most linemen he would face, and faster, too. The nation had not yet heard of 16-year old Herschel Walker, nor had most of the state of Georgia. For now his name was pretty much confined to the conversations of folks who talked football at Bobby Newsome's Ford, or Millers Restaurant. These Johnson County football fans sensed that they were about to watch the start of something very big.36 The 1978 football season was one to remember for Herschel and Johnson County football fans. He ended the season with a school record of 1,424 yards and 15 touchdowns. Johnson County High finished with a 9-4 record, a region championship, and the folks who hung out at Bobby Newsome's Ford and Millers Restaurant were breathlessly counting the days until September 1979. Herschel Walker 175 would be back— bigger, mightier, and faster than ever. By the fall of 1979, the start of Herschel's senior year, friends called him "Hulk" (as in the TV show "The Incredible Hulk") Terry Todd, a Sports Illustrated writer, would describe Herschel's upper body as looking "Rather like a dark brown, triangularly shaped nylon sack filled with just the right number of 16-pound shots."37 The college recruiters had begun to hear of Herschel during his junior year. During the 1979 football season and into the early spring of 1980, they poured into Wrightsville to watch him run. of Georgia and of Clemson stopped by to say hello. Out of the chopper stepped , the Georgia Tech coach. Even some politicians got in on the act. He received messages from Maynard Jackson, then Atlanta's mayor, and Andrew Young, who succeed him in that position. Recruiters from schools as far away as Nebraska, USC, and UCLA made trips to Wrightsville. They had all come to entice an athlete who had finished the year with 3,167 yards and 45 touchdowns, averaging an amazing 8.5 yards each time he carried the ball. His career totals 6,137 yards and 86 touchdowns are still both national high school records. By the winter of 1980, Herschel had everybody guessing. Just about everywhere he went, he attracted crowds and questions. Recruiters flocked to Wrightsville like crows sitting on telephone wires. On the first day of spring, he had 176 narrowed his choices to three schools, Georgia, Clemson, and Georgia Tech. Then, it was Georgia or Alabama. He flipped a coin. It came up heads. Herschel had made his decision - - Georgia! Ninety-four miles away the news reached Athens, home of the University of Georgia, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in America. The university, which was chartered in 1785, did not accept black students until 1961. Its varsity football team did not have a black player until 1972.38 By 1958, the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia had accelerated dramatically as blacks and whites became aware of the national scope of the movement. Civil rights activism remained largely confined to the Atlanta metropolitan area where a significant number of whites had begun to work toward change in an effort to minimize conflict and violence. While much of the state remained committed to the doctrine of "massive resistance," some efforts were under way to bring about cooperation between whites and blacks. However, by this time, blacks had grown increasingly intolerant of further repression and filed suit to desegregate the University of Georgia. On January 6, 1961, following two years of court litigations, the United States District Court for the District of Middle Georgia ordered the immediate enrollment of Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter in the University of Georgia. One hundred and sixty years of segregation had officially ended. Three 177 days later, both students attended class without incident, but during the evening the peaceful integration of the University of Georgia ended. After a basketball game with arch-rival Georgia Tech, a large group of students left the arena and surged up Lumpkin street toward the dormitory in which Charlayne Hunter lived. By the time they reached the crest of the hill, it had grown into an angry mob of several hundred. The group threw bricks at Myers Hall, shouted obscenities, started fires, and unfurled a banner reading "Nigger Go Home." Finally, police used tear gas and water hose to disperse the mob. Within minutes after the mob had dispersed, state troopers took Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes to Atlanta.39 On Monday, January 16, the two young black students returned to the campus and began classes for the second time. Although there were numerous unpleasant and sometimes ugly incidents in the days, weeks, and years to follow, both remained enrolled without further legal challenges. Both earned their bachelor's degrees from the institution. Within a short time, a few additional black students gained admission to the university. Over the next few years, the number of black students gradually increased, but still remained quite small as the decade of the 1970s ended. Desegregation did not necessarily mean, of course, that all facets of the segregation mentality was immediately erased from the university. As late as March 1963, officials of 178 the Board of Regents office openly wondered whether it night be possible to maintain segregation of dining facilities, but Charlayne Hunter's arrival for lunch in Snelling Hall during the early spring of that year in the company of several white students effectively demolished that hope. It would take much more time, however, for the institution's intercollegiate athletics program to embrace the idea that black students should be a part of the university's athletic teams. As late as 1967, members of the board of the Georgia Athletic Association still resisted the idea and heard a stern sermon from retiring President Aderhold, who urged them to give up the idea that intercollegiate sports at Georgia should not be integrated. Nevertheless, the association directed that henceforth Georgia's teams would participate in no integrated contests upon Georgia soil, or in any contests where segregation was not maintained in the stands. As to those contests scheduled for out-of-state, the association declared that Georgians would respect the laws, custom and traditions of the host state. Thus, the university cleared the way to keep its date the next year with the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a contest Georgia fans eagerly anticipated.40 The modest concession to the 'custom and traditions' of host states in no way signaled a softening of the position of association officials and the Board of Regents toward desegregation, but increasingly pressures from the Civil Rights Movement in the South soon brought changes in the segregation system and profound consternation among whites. Ironically, the same day that the association declared Georgia's policy of respecting the maintenance of segregation in intercollegiate athletics, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. The boycott that flowed from Parks' action provided the context and impetus to desegregate all-white institutions, and in the fall of 1972, Amp Arnold, Georgia's first black football player, arrived on campus. Now, during fall of 1980, mighty Herschel Walker, dressed out in Georgia's red and black. To University of Georgia fans this was exciting news, but nothing of sufficient substance to rewrite Georgia's past history and present affinity for racial intolerance.41 On Easter 1980, from a pay phone in tiny Wrightsville, Georgia, Mike Cavan called his wife and said, "It's all over." The University of Georgia assistant football coach had just completed the most important recruiting assignment of his life. At 8:15 p.m., Herschel Walker, a 6-feet-l and 216 pounds of sculpted might and speed, one of the most heralded running backs ever to come out of high school, was signing a grant-in-aid with Georgia. Coaches from around the nation had pulled out of the little town in defeat, and, Wrightsville's reason for national attention was now all over, except for the rioting. Across town from where Cavan stood in the phone booth, an African Methodist Episcopal 180 minister and a Southern Christian Leadership Conference local official pondered their next move, after an altercation with Wrightsville*s police chief on the previous evening, April 5. The week after Herschel Walker signed with Georgia, schools and factories closed down in his hometown. People shouted in the streets, car windows were shattered. This was no celebration, it had nothing to do with Walker, except that he was black, and Walker had nothing to do with it. He never would.42 These events were little noticed by the sports media who descended on Wrightsville in anticipation of the signing of Walker. That weekend had been the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial march that had wound through the east-central Georgia farming town of 2,500 on Saturday. That evening, John Martin, Johnson County SCLC president, approached police chief Linton Smith for assistance in directing traffic around the demonstrations on Monday night. He demanded that Sheriff Roland Attaway arrest Smith for not protecting the marchers, but Attaway refused. Tuesday night, demonstrators returned, demanding that Attaway hire black deputies. A crowd of whites gathered. There was a race riot, with chains and clubs and nine people being hurt. Georgia Governor Georgia Busbee sent in the state patrol. White supremacist, J.B. Stoner arrived in town. By Saturday, the Imperial Wizard Bill Wilkerson of the invisible Empire of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan joined 181 him, and 130 state troopers had to block a confrontation between the white supremacists and Lowery's civil rights marchers. Herschel Walker said nothing. He was not present at these demonstrations or at any of the other ensuing ones that would take place over the next year and beyond. Civil Rights leaders pleaded for him to make a statement, take a stand, but he refused.43 That fall, Walker would lead Georgia to the national championship. In the media, it would be as if the Wrightsville of Walker and the Wrightsville of the riots were two different towns as Walker never brought it up. However, by 1986, Herschel Walker was willing to discuss the issue. He said: Some people have said they thought Herschel hasn't overstepped his boundaries in the black-white issue - he's a good nigger. They always say the worst thing a black person can do is marry a white. Did I pay any attention to that? I am not a speaker. I am a doer. When I was in high school, people wanted me to take a stand on the racial problem. But as young as I was, how could I take a stand when I didn't understand what they were demonstrating for? I felt I could hurt the cause a lot worse by not understanding, if I'd made a statement that was wrong.44 Tension in Wrightsville continued into January 1983, when a civil rights suit brought by blacks against Sheriff Roland Attaway and others was dismissed in federal court. Meanwhile, in another world, Herschel Walker was running over tackiers for the University of Georgia. "Some of the biggest segregationists I've known, I saw whoop and holler when Herschel Walker was scoring touchdowns at Georgia," says former Georgia governor and U.S. Senator Herman Talmadge. "I think Herschel helping make Georgia No. 1 resounded throughout the state," says Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. "They've accepted Herschel." "Here was this incredible athlete," says Loran Smith, president of the Georgia Bulldog Club, the school's network of boosters, "who had that very delightful little smile and that little squeak to his voice that made you think he was still a little boy who enjoyed playing games. He endeared himself to a broad spectrum of people because he had good manners, was a diligent student — though he was not the best student we've had among athletes at Georgia — and an unselfish football player.” "It was extremely important," says University of Georgia historian Thomas Oyer, "that the state of Georgia have a hero who happened to be black."45 Black sociologist Harry Edwards perceives Walker's image in the South from another side. He maintained that Walker "was in good shape in Georgia as long as he was the right kind of nigger," and he "restricted himself to activities and comments about what was happening on the football field.” Edwards further insisted that Walker's inability to make a statement against the hometown emanated from his concern about being above reproach as far as his credentials relative to being the right kind of nigger. 183 "So, Herschel's suppose to be an Uncle Tom? Well, that's bull," says Mike Cavan, who for the next three years after his phone call to his wife in Athens, would realize that his late night vigils and anxieties over Herschel Walker were anything but over. "Herschel did things the way he wanted to, and he didn't give a damn what anybody thought," says Cavan, "I know, I was there." As Georgia's running backs coach, and as the recruiter who had made more than 100 trips to Wrightsville, Cavan remained the closest member of coach Vince Dooley's staff to Walker during his three roller­ coaster years at Georgia.46 At first, far from the tempestuous little Wrightsville, Walker's consistent subdued "Yes, Sir" and "No, Ma'am" came across as Southern manners to the white men who glad-handed him and the white women who hugged and kissed him during his public appearances. "I am," says Walker, "from the country- - five miles outside Wrightsville." He was, says Dr. James Cobb of the University of Mississippi's Institute for Southern Studies, "the perfect figure for the '80s, which is a very conservative decade." Herschel's father, Willis Walker, warned the worshippers in the spring of 1981, amid the jubilation over Georgia's first national championship, that "Herschel's got a mind of his own, and you ain't gonna find out no more than he wants you to know." What almost no one other than Walker knew was that in August of 1982, while he lay in an Athens hospital with a cast on his broken 184 right thumb, he had realized that everything he had done so far had been for Georgia and its people and he began considering doing something for himself. The broken thumb made him sensitive to the potential of being more severely injured. What if it were a knee next time? What if, after all this acclaim, there were no pro contracts, at the end?47 Throughout the season, as Georgia went undefeated, Herschel Walker pondered. In December, Walker walked with the trusted Cavan on his way to practice in preparation for another national championship showdown, this time against Penn State in the 1983 Sugar Bowl. He told the assistant coach that he had recently been offered several million dollars to sign with the new United States Football League (USFL) and forego his final year of eligibility at Georgia Cavan had heard such talk before. The previous two off­ seasons, Walker had considered jumping to the pros. First, he flirted with the League. Then, in the spring of 1982, Walker had considered challenging the National Football League's (NFL) policy of not signing players until their college eligibility was up. As they walked, Cavan remembered Walker's promises earlier that month, upon accepting the Heisman Trophy, that he would remain at Georgia for his final year of eligibility. Not until two weeks after Georgia lost the national championship to Penn State would Cavan begin to take that pre-practice conversation seriously — very seriously.48 185 The day after Valentine's Day, 1983, word was leaked to the media that Walker would marry Cindy DeAngelis, the white woman who had ridden beside him in an open convertible down the streets of Wrightsville the previous December 18, Herschel Walker Day in his hometown. If eyebrows had been raised that day, or over the pictures in the newspaper the following day there was no outcry in the state, a region, which not many years before would not have taken nearly so lightly to interracial dating. This, after all, was Herschel— and that made it "different." On the day that word of the engagement appeared in the media, along with the disclosure that Herschel and Cindy had met during Walker's freshman year and had been sweethearts since Willis Walker's words, "you ain't gonna know any more about him than he wants you to know," applied again. As the public read the morning headlines about the engagement, Walker's "attorney- adviser," Jack Manton, was enroute to New York to act as an agent for Walker to negotiate with the of the USFL. Later that evening, Manton, General's owner, J. Walter Duncan, and a USFL attorney arrived in Athens on Duncan's Lear Jet. By late the next evening, Walker had signed a contract and then persuaded Duncan to tear it up, but it was too late. Other USFL franchises, who'd been in on the vote to waive the league's eligibility rules, had leaked word of the deal to the media. Herschel Walker's eligibility to play football for the University of Georgia 186 was over given the amateur rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.49 Walker held a press conference denying the rumors. His next press conference would be to apologize for lying. On February 23, he officially, publicly signed with the Generals. The state of Georgia was in shock, but generally the public did not initially blame him, considering the money. Across the entrance to a sorority house at Georgia was draped a banner reading "Herschel: For $6 million, we'd go to!” Then came the letters. "We knew you (blacks) would always take the money and run," many of them said. Walker reflects: People were upset. They didn't care about Herschel Walker. They cared about the guy who was playing for them. It goes back to when you were always on stage and when you weren't on stage anymore they didn't remember who you were. More letters: We always knew that when blacks came into money, you marry whites. Despite the bitterness over Walker's leaving Georgia, despite the disapproval of his marrying a white woman, despite his refusal to speak out on racial strife in Wrightsville, sport historian Donald Spivey still articulates the mark of Herschel Walker on race relations in the South. When Herschel Walker was out there doing his thing on the field, I think a person, even if he's the harshest kind of racist, somewhere in the back of his mind is going to have to bereconsidering something. Walker had a white girlfriend and married her. That may 187

reinforce some of the worst fears the racist may have. Yet, it was, in a sense, a power play. It had to do with the question of power and assertiveness in civil rights. He was not going to play the role that others would have him play. The Civil Rights Movement worked on a number of planes. There have been non­ violent protesters, violent protesters, people who never went into the streets but met others one-on-one and tried to persuade them. And there were people who were just individuals who became role models, like Jesse Owens or Herschel Walker, who would be assertive whether others like it or not50 Whether others liked it or not, on December 18, 1982, Herschel Walker and his sweetheart, Cindy DeAngelis, rode in a *55 Thunderbird together down the very streets where in 1980, the week after he signed with Georgia, black and white forces had clashed. "I know," said Walker, "that Dr. Edwards said I've been good. But what else was there for me to do? What else was there for me to say?” Maybe the answer to Herschel's question remains in that part of rural Georgia where many people say he was "raised right," and where adhering to the "custom" remains synonymous with the art of getting-to-know.51 CHAPTER V NOTES

1Rick Telander, "A Singular Way to Play Football," Sports Illustrated. 57 (September, 1982): 24-36; John D. McCallum, Southeastern Conference Football (New York: Charles Scribner, 1980), pp. 214-60; Jarvis Jenkins, "Paralyzingly Mediocre in Football: A Series of Catastrophes and Embarrassments," The Miami Herald. 11 July 1984, Sec. E, p. 2; Paul W. Bryant, Bear: The Hard Life and Good Times of Alabama's Coach Brvant. (Boston: Little and Brown, 1974), pp. 306-17; Ralph Bazin, "Campus Crisis," The Black Scholar. 20 (May, 1990), 16-22; Joe Earle, "Vandy Eager to Erase Some of Its History," Nashville Commercial Appeal. 11 Nov. 1986, Sec. B, p. 7. 2Prentis Rogers, "Unfiltered Truth About College Athletes," The Atlanta Journal. 29 May 1990, Sec. E, p. 2; Tom Walker, "Sports Fans May Need More Than Wins," Atlanta Voice. 13 February 1986, Sec. B, p. 5; Paul W. Bryant, Bear By Himself (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), pp. 105-18; Numan B. Bartley, Florida's Civil Rights History Doesn't Fit (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1982), pp. 212-41. Congruent to Bryant's feelings about the positive relationship between black and white players on his teams, when Mitchell was a member of Bryant's coaching staff, he indicated that he recruited more white athletes than blacks. While on recruiting trips, he was invited to spend the night in the homes of many white Alabama alumni and fans. In so doing, Mitchell suggested that he was warmly accepted, felt quite comfortable and concluded that there was an element of Alabama football which tended to suggest that blacks and whites were friends. 3Sid Salter, "Old Philadelphia," Scott Countv Times. 12 Oct. 1983, Sec. A, p. 7. McCallum, Southeastern. pp. 167- 75; Willie Morris, The Courting of Marcus Dupree (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983), pp. 235-52; David Sansing, The Foundation For Southern Attitudes (Springfield, 111.: Charles C. Thomas, 1983), pp. 286-92; Lars Hudson, "Black Worker In The Deep South," Black Enterprise. 20 (June 1986): 97-113. 4Salter, "Old Philadelphia", p. 7; Sansing, Foundations, pp. 97-122; Emily P. Robinson, Blacks In The Deep South (New York: Vintage Press, 1974), pp. 84-91; David Sansing, A History of Higher Education In Mississippi (New York: Appleton-Croft, 1984), pp. 105-27. 188 189 5Robert J. Vickers, "Ole Miss Blacks Pick Up Baton For Civil Rights," The Southern Standard. 11 Oct. 1989, Sec. B, p. 6; Judith Bethel, "UM Students Press Black Studies issues," The Atlanta Constitution. 2 June 1987, Sec. B, p. 8; Richard A. Neaton, "Rebels Poise To Dispel Gloom," Mississippi Press Leader. 27 August 1988, Sec. C, p. 1; Dudley Percy, "Ole Miss' Football Face Is Changing," Oxford Daily Registrar. 18 Sept. 1987, Sec. B, p. 6; Sansing, History, pp. 316-439; Juan Williams, Eves On The Prize (New York: Coward-McCann, 1976), pp. 245-47. 6Adam Nossiter, "Ole Miss Succeeds By Selling Drawbacks," Southern Sentinel. 15 July 1986, Sec. B, p. 3; Niel R. McManus, "Next Century Has Been A Long Time Coming," Mississippi Press Leader. 23 July 1987, Sec. E, p. 6; Percy, "Ole Miss Football," p. 6; Malcolm Crowley, The Faulkner Reader: Selections From The Works of William Faulkner (New York: Penguin Books, 1978), pp. 162-89; William Faulkner, As I Lav Dvina (New York: Random House, 1957), pp. 47-64; James Zweg, Ole Miss: Mississippi's Yeoman. 1940-1980 (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1985), pp. 66-374. 7Nossiter, "Ole Miss Succeeds," p. 3; McMannus, "Next Century," p. 6; Percy, "Ole Miss Football," p. 6; Joe Drape, "Strength of Heroes Is In Shared Experiences," Reflector. 47 (November 1986):ll-27; Zweg, Ole Miss, pp. 66-374. 8Gary Turner, Interview, West Point, Mississippi, 17 Mar. 1989; Drape, "Strength," p. 11-27; Percy, "Ole Miss Football," p. 6; Vickers, "Ole Miss Blacks," p. 6; Sansing, History, pp. 316-439; Nossiter, "Ole Miss Succeeds," p. 3; Florence Mars, Witness In Philadelphia (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1977), pp. 155-85; William S. Banks, civil Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 228-52; Charles M. Gates, Sensational Seventies (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1981), pp. 176-85; Frank White, "Blacks At White Colleges: Learning to Cope," Ebony, 12 (March, 1985): 116-24; Eugene Morris, "Meredith Wants Cash For Memories," Atlanta Daily World. 12 Sept. 1987, Sec. B, p. 9; Eva Matacia, "Long, Hot Summer of 1964 Etched In Black and White," The Atlanta Journal. 28 June 1987, Sec. J, p. 4; Marcia Kunstel, "The Civil Rights Hero Who Shuns That Title," The Washington Post. 30 July 1990, Sec. B, p. 5. ’Turner, Interview; Drape, "Strength of Heroes," pp. 11-27; Gates. Sensational Seventies, pp. 227-34; McCallum, Southeastern, pp. 235-41; John Croyle, "Color The Ruling Class Red and White," Enterprise. 8 December 1976, Sec. D, p. 4. 190 10Turner, Interview; Vickers, "Ole Miss Blacks," p. 6; Bethel, UM Students," p. 8; Nossiter, "Ole Miss Succeeds," p. 3; William Stokes, "Around The County," Walthall Countv Adviser. 28 Aug. 1978, Sec. A, pp. 1-2. 11 Turner, Interview; Gates, Sensational Seventies, pp. 176-85; Nossiter, "Ole Miss Succeeds," p. 3; Drape, "Strength," pp. 11-27; McManus, "Next Century," p. 6; William Winter, "The Delicate Balance of Athletic Chemistry," Southern Growth Policies Board. 40 (November, 1983):7-18; Jim Minter, "A Worrisome Return To Bigotry," The Atlanta Constitution. 13 Nov. 1986, Sec. B, p. 1. 12Turner, Interview; Vickers, "Ole Miss Blacks," p. 6; Bethel, "UM Students," p. 8; Nossiter, "Ole Miss Succeeds," p. 3; Ed Hinton, "Rebels Returning To Old Ways," The Atlanta Constitution. 14 Nov. 1986, Sec. D, p. 3; Percy, "Ole Miss," p. 6. 13Vickers, "Ole Miss Blacks," p. 6, Bethel "UM Students," p. 8; Sansing, History, pp. 409-81; Mars, Witness, pp. 218-36; Charles Sterns, The Black Man Of The South And The Rebels (Houston: Hayden Books, 1964), pp. 276- 92; Robinson, Blacks In The Deep South, pp. 212-65; David Boul, "The Ole South Still Lives," The Atlanta Constitution. 9 Feb. 1986, Sec. A, p. 4; Gerald Dunham, Echoes From The Mountain Too (Houston: Infinity, 1983), pp. 77-91. 14Vickers, "Ole Miss Blacks, "p. 6; Bethel, UM Students," p. 8; Percy, "Ole Miss Succeeds," p. 3. 15Sansing, History, pp. 316-480; Mars, Witness. pp. 253-76; Lerone Bennett, Jr., What Manner of Man (Chicago: Johnson, 1964), pp. 188-226; Banks, Civil Rights, pp. 203- 14; John Loengard, "A Separate Path To Equality," Time. 22 (October 14, l967):31-44; Morris, Courting, pp. 33-252. 16Morris, Courting, pp. 306-37; Douglas S. Looney, "The Bare Facts Are He's A Star," Sports Illustrated 55 (July 23, 1982):32-40. Dan Hulbert, "Dupree Goes Sooner," Neshoba Democrat. 13 Aug. 1982, Sec. A, p. 1. 17Kenny Moore, "To Baffle and Amaze," Snorts Illustrated 57 (November 30 1982):22-28; Ralph Wiley, "Back On Track With A Tailback: Freshman I Back Marcus Dupree Has Oklahoma Running Once Again; ibid, 57 (October 13, 1982):63- 68; Carl Stowers," The Oil Land Express," The Dally Oklahoman. 19 Nov. 1982, Sec. D, p. 1; Mable M. Smythe, "James Meredith: The Man Who Walked In Darkness," Journal of Negro History. 31 (1962):218-36; Salter, "Old Philadelphia," p. 9; Peter Gammon, "No More Rainbow Sign," Sports Illustrated. 65 (July, 1986):34-40; Floyd King, A Long Day's 191 Journey Into The End Zone (New Yorks John Wiley and Sons, 1984), pp. 51-59. 18Gammon, "No More," pp. 34-40; Mark Bradley, "Rams Polish Relic," The Atlanta Constitution. Oct. 6, 1989, Sec. C, p. 11. 19Hulbert, "Dupree," p. 1; Morris, Courting, pp. 418- 432; Gammon, "No More," p. 34-40; Bradley, "Rams," p. 11. 20"Vickes, "Ole Miss Blacks," p. 6; Bethel, "UM Students," p. 8; Nossiter, "Ole Miss Succeeds," p. 3. See also, John N. Cox, Blacks And The New South (New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 1983), pp. 280-301; Morris, Courting, pp. 33-252. 21Turner, Interview; Hank Ezell, "Media's Role In civil Rights Movement," The Atlanta Journal. 5 Apr. 1987, Sec. B, p. 11; Thonnia Lee, "The Struggle Against Racism Is Not Over," ibid., 28 June 1987, Sec. J, p. 4. See also, Jabari Simama, "News On Black Colleges Troubling," ibid., 17 Apr. 1987, Sec. C, p. 8; Fran Hessen, "Reagan Policies Limiting Blacks' Access To College, ibid., 17 May 1988, Sec. C, p. 6; Rick Cleveland, "Southern Miss To Host Jax State," Jackson Clarion-Ledaer. 3 Mar. 1987, Sec. A, p. 1; Lawrence Dawson, "Wheat Shocker Leave Path For Tigers," Jackson Daily News. 19 Oct. 197, Sec. c, p. 1; Prentice Yancey, "Gorden: Its A Good Financial Deal, Plain and Simple," The Atlanta Constitution. 28 Oct. 1987, Sec. D, p. 11; Arthur Sampson, "Southern Miss Edges Jax State, 21-16,: 1 Nov. 1987, Sec. C, p. 2; Orley Hood, "Tackling The Color Barrier," Jackson Clarion-Ledger. 5 Nov. 1987, Sec. B, p. 3. It is plausible that "thus far on our way" to Gary Turner, Ole Miss and the "Deep South" is indicative of the fact that Jackson State University, the foremost predominantly black university in Mississippi, journey in 1987 90 miles south down highway 49 to the Golden Eagles of the Univesity of Southern Mississippi. It is a trip short in miles but long in time, and the change that had to take place before white and black colleges could play one another in this socially self-conscious state. Around the state, the memory of a past filled with racial violence is part and parcel of the present and where more than 30 percent of the voting-age population is black, the event takes on ramifications beyond those of a football game. The game is being touted as the "Black and Blue Bowl." The name comes form the fact that one of Jackson State’s colors is blue and one of Southern Miss' is black, but it could just as well characterize the rough-and-tumble treatment the game has put on the psyche of that state. 192 According to W.C. Gorden, Jackson State's football coach, who apparently feels more at hone with zone pass defenses than he does chalking up another in the history of state race relations, it has been like living in a pressure cooker. No matter where people congregate— in church, at the grocery store, the record shop— the conversation is about the football game. The game has generated a statewide media blitz. The Jackson Clarion-Ledaer. the state's largest newspaper, will have a four-page special section on the day of the fame. Rick Cleveland, executive sports editor of the Clarion- Ledaer. has used his column to lobby for this game for eight years, expects to find crosses burning in his yard if Jackson State wins. Still, ironies abound. One local newspaper depicts Warren Roberts, the wealthy alumnus Southern Miss' stadium is named for, was an avowed segregationist, spinning in his grave like a turbine, with wires hooked up to his tomb and supplying electrical power to Hatiesburg from the current. Nevertheless, the game is a reflection on the changes Mississippi has seen since Gorden took his first head coaching job in 1956, since few black high school coaches in Mississippi thought they would ever get a chance to be a college head coach. And with the way things were with segregation, the thought of a black playing or coaching a football game against Southern Miss was unthinkable. According to Ruben Andersen, Mississippi's first black Supreme Court Justice and a Jackson State graduate, many blacks and whites enveloped in the heat of the contest, really don't understand all the things that some people say about what this game means. It would speak well for all to remember it's a football game and both teams want to win, but it's no race war. It's no Civil War. What must be understood is that, even though in the past, black people in Mississippi were forced into segregated institutions, they were able through their pride and an intensely held sense of self-worth, to create something in institutions like Jackson State. This game gives some people, who might not otherwise have it, the opportunity to recognize that Jackson State is good for the state of Mississippi. In the interim, however, most people looking at the motives behind the contest dismiss talk about a desire for social change as being the reason for it. The game, they say, has more to do with the bottom line than the color line. 22John Maher, "A Chance To Peer Into Football's Soul," Opelika-Auburn News. 30 Aug. 1982, Sec. B, p. 2; Bob Ellis, "here's Football Everywhere, But There's A Genuine Love of The Sport Down South We're A Community and This Is Part of The Culture," Birmingham News. 18 Oct. 1984, Sec. C, p. 4; 193 Jim Bradley, "War Eagles Like How Williams Goes After It," The Atlanta Constitution. 12 Nov. 1982, Sec. D, p. 4. ^Maher, "A Chance," p. 2; Ellis, "There's Football," p. 4; Stern, Black Man. pp. 247-316; Stacey Phillips, The Old South: Waiting Patiently To Capture History (New York: Holt, 1986), pp. 85-101; Sansing, Foundations. pp. 143-59. See also, Wilbur Cash, The Mind of The South (New York: Knoff, 1941), pp. 213-55. 24Maher, "A Chance," p. 2. 25John Papanek, "All The Way On Every Play," Sports Illustrated. 57 (October 9, 1983):44-52; Rick Young, "Bo Knows, But I Don't," Southside Sun. 26 July 1984, Sec. B, p. 6; Brad Hawthorne, "Buckarama Makes New Additions," Birmingham News. 12 Aug 1986, Sec. F, p. 4; Mailon Kent, "Auburn Is Really A Family With Jackson Living In Dorm," Opelika-Auburn News. 26 July 1984, Sec. B, p. 2. 26Maher, "A Chance," p. 2; Ellis, "There's Football," p. 4; Kent, "Auburn," p. 2. 27Maher, "A Chance," p. 2; Ellis, "There's Football Everywhere," p. 4; Kent, "Auburn," p. 2. 28Jeff Prugh, Herschel Walker (New York: Random House, 1983), pp. 7-16; Paul Dolan, Let The Big Dog Bite (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), pp. 22-37; Emily P. Robinson, Blacks In he Deep South (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp. 186-233; David Boul, "The Old South Still Lives," The Atlanta Constitution. 9 Feb. 1986, Sec. A, p. 4. See also, Albert Blaustein, Civil Rights and The American Negro (New York: Washington Square, 1968), pp. 373-89. 29 Art Rust, History of The Black Athlete (Boston: Cox, 1968), pp. 71-113; Ocania Chalk, BlackColleqe Sports (New York: Dodd-Mead, 1976), pp. 9-14; George Curry, Jake Gaither: America's Most Famous Black Coach (New York: Dodd- Mead, 1977), pp. 282-305; "Coloreds to Play Game," Americus Southern Watchman. 28 (September 1940), p. 3. 30Prugh, HSESShSlr pp. 7-16; Dolan, Let The Big, pp. 22-37; William s. Banks, Civil Rights (New York: Oxford, 1979), pp. 376-92; Eva Matacia, "Long, Hot Summer of 1964 Etched In Black and White," The Atlanta Journal. 28 June 1987, Sec. J, p. 4. See also, Doris Saunders, The Kennedy Years and _The Negro (Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1964), pp. 124-235. 31Bill Shipp, "Rural Enclaves," Georgia Digest. 46 (January, 1986):218-24; "Georgia: Characteristics of The 194 Population," United States Department of Commerce. 12 (March, 1983): 256-309; Prugh, Herschel. pp. 89-116. See also, Dolan, Let The Bio, pp. 25-51. 32Shipp, "Rural Enclaves," pp. 218-32; Stern, Black Man. pp. 247-316; David L. Lewis, King (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970), pp. 141-71; Prugh, Herschel. pp. 83-111; Bill Crommartie, There Goes Herschel (New York: Leisure Press, 1983), pp. 3-12. 33Willis Walker, Interview, Wrightsville, Georgia, 12 Dec. 1989; Burnett McGill, "Last Guys Finish Nice," The Atlanta Journal. 18 Jan. 1983, Sec. D, p. 7; Prugh, Herschel. pp. 83-111. ^Tom Walker, "Leaders Search For New Approaches To Desegregation," The Atlanta Constitution. 5 Aug. 1964, Sec. A, pp. 1-3; Lewis, Kina, pp. 112-40; Prugh, Herschel. pp. 121-28. “ crommartie, There Goes, pp. 72-77; Banks, Civil Rights. pp. 376-409; Lewis, King, pp. 346-69. See also, Dolan, Let The Big, pp. 25-51. “ "Worms: 35 Cent A Pint," Wrightsville Headlight. 21 Aug. 1978, p. 4. See also, Prugh, Herschel. pp. 121-28; Dolan, Let The Big, pp. 25-51. 37Terry Todd, "Generally, It Was A One Man Show," Sports Illustrated. 59 (July 8, 1983): 20-26. See also Crommartie, There Goes, pp. 81-84. “ Todd, "Generally," pp. 20-26; Dick Williams, "Georgia Needs Walker and A Few Good Men,” The Atlanta Constitution. 7 Nov. 1980, Sec. E, p. 6; Thomas O'Toole, "Georgia De- emphasizes Recruiting Walker By Boosters," The Atlanta Tribune. 16 Dec. 1980, Sec. C, p. 1; Cynthia Tucker, "Herschel Walker: Gone To The Dogs," Atlanta Daily World. 24 June 1981, Sec. B, p. 2. 39Thomas G. Dyer, The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History. 1785-1985 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985), pp. 123-52; Ruby Doris Smith, "Nonviolence Can Work In Georgia,” The Atlanta Enquirer. 5 Aug. 1961, Sec. B, p. 10; Joseph Ryan, "Integration: Accept It," The Atlanta Constitution. 10 Oct. 1981, Sec. A, pp. 3- 4; Carl Holman, "Georgia A High Noon," The Atlanta Voice. 21 July 1961, Sec. A, p. 1; Julien Mayfield, "The Five Battles of Atlanta," Atlanta Magazine. 32 (July 1978):62-89; Benjamin Quarles, "The Danger of a Little Progress," Ebonv. 12 (November 1967)68-86. 195 *°Dyer, University, pp. 303-34; Peter H. Silverman, Horace T. Ward v. Board _of Regents of The University System of Georgia: Segregation and Desegregation (Atlanta: Press, 1970), pp. 8-13; James F. Cook, "Politics and Education In The Talmadge Era," Georgia Historical Quarterly. 49 (1965):418-23; Jesse Outlar, Between The Hedges: A Storv of Georgia Football (Huntsville, Ala: Strode Publishers, 1974), pp. 73-77. 41Dyer, University, pp. 303-34; Outlar, Between, pp. 124-42; Wallace Wetfeldt, "Current of Comprise Flows Through Tension Here," Birmingham News. 14 Apr. 1962, Sec. A, p. 1- 2. See also William Mahoney, "In Pursuit of Freedom," Liberator. 23 (November 1963):93-l01. 42Mike Cavan, Interview, Valdosta, Georgia, 13 Nov. 1986; Tucker, "Herschel Walker,” p. 2; Bob Deans, "Peace Prevails As Police Jail More Demonstrators," Albany Herald. 27 Apr. 1980, Sec. A, p. 3; Vic Smith, "City Officials Reject Black Group's Demands," The Atlanta Constitution. 18 May 1980, Sec. C, p. 5. “Bill Strong, "Time To Take A Finn Stand," The Atlanta Enguirer. 5 June 1980, Sec. C, p. 2; Ron Gibson, "Police, Fireman, Disperse Demonstrators With Fire Hoses," Afro- American. 23 June 1980. See also, Lewis, King, pp. 132-211. Dr. Joseph Lowery is the President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

“ Douglas s. Looney, "It Was A Herschel Walkover," Sports Illustrated. 57 (November 14, 1986):26-32; Furman Bisher, "Breaking Clear of The Crowd," The Atlanta Constitution. 25 July 1983, sec. D, p. 1. See also, Vince Dooley, Dooley's Dawas (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989), pp. 146-60. “Ron Gibson, "Wrightsville Marches Continue Despite Court Defeat," The Atlanta Journal. 3 Feb. 1983, Sec. B, p. 2; Dolan, Let The Bio, pp. 162-66; Andrew Young, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 14 Oct. 1986; Loran Smith, Interview, Athens, Georgia, 4 Nov. 1986; Thomas Dyer, Interview, 4 Nov. 1986. “ Looney, "It Was," pp. 16-32; Harry Edwards, "Covering All The Bases: Tough Talk On Black Sports and Challenges Ahead," Fast Forward. 21 (March, 1983):15-22; Cavan, Interview. 47Prugh, Herschel. pp. 223-27. See also, Crommartie, There Goes, p. 77. For Cobb's statement, see Dolan, Let he £ig, pp. 118-133. 196 *®Cavan, Interview; John Underwood, "Does Herschel Have Georgia On His Mind," Snorts Illustrated. 56 (November 3, 1983), pp. 22-28; Furman Bisher, "Don't Fool Around With These Dawgs,” The Atlanta Constitution. 7 Dec. 1983, Sec. E, p. 1. 49William Moore, "A Taste Of That Not So Old College Spirit," Upscale. 28 (February, 1984), pp. 59-63; Glen Sheeley, "The Other Side of Walker," The Atlanta Constitution. 7 Mar. 1983, Sec. D, p. 2; Eugene Sheldon, "Georgia Revamps Without Herschel," Athens Banner Herald. 20 Aug. 1983, Sec. B, p. 6. S0Lewis Grizzard, Walker to Georgia, "Have Ma Heard," The Atlanta Journal. 25 Feb. 1983, Sec. E, p. 1; Paul Zimmerman, "Commanding General Herschel Walker," Snorts Illustrated. 58 (March 18, 1983):40-52; Dan Jenkins, "Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks, ibid., 58 (March 31, 1983):14-20. s1Todd, "Generally," pp. 20-26; Lewis Grizzard, "A Hero: Not So-Squeaky Clean," The Atlanta Journal. 30 Feb. 1983, Sec. E, p. 1; Chico Renfro, "Common Sense Carried Walker To The USFL," The Atlanta Daily World. 9 Apr. 1983, Sec. C, p. 1; Edwards, "Covering," pp. 15-22. CHAPTER VI 1ST. DOWN AND YEARS TO GO

A. CIVIL RIGHTS: LONG ON TIME, SHORT ON PROGRESS Since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., over twenty years ago, black Americans are without exception still bearing the torch of a movement that pierced the conscience of the nation and exposed its hypocrisy to the world. When King led the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, demonstrations and boycotts, strategies of non-violent direct action adopted by Montgomery, (Ala.) blacks were the launching pad for the Civil Rights Movement. Throughout the nation, the majority of blacks still agree on one point: the Civil Rights Movement, though toned down and refined, is not dead. Although the primary goal of the Civil Rights Movement — the death of legal segregation — has been achieved, blacks still hold differing views on the extent of progress that has been achieved. Clearly, black Americans have made substantial gains in some areas in the past 20 years. As a nation, we have gone a long way on racism, although not eliminating it. Racism is not legally tolerated in the United States of America. To that extent the goal has been realized. If you look at the political rights, civil rights, and educational opportunities, there 197 198 has been a significant level of achievement. However, racial bigotry is, unfortunately, often so subtle that we are often unaware of its unspoken prejudice. When the unjust, sometimes brutal results of racism is not confronted in our daily lives, complacency allows us to take refuge in the all too comforting lie that racial harmony has virtually been achieved. Racial intolerance and its effects must be attacked everyday in a thousand small ways before the final victory of justice and equality is, as it must be, ultimately won. This cannot excuse complacency, inaction and silence. Sins of omission are just as harmful as sins of commission. After all, civil rights is not horse shoes. You don't get any points for coming close.1 As the SEC closes the decade of the 1980's, Dr. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, contends that exploitation of black football players in the SEC is still a disgrace. He maintains that exploitation, through academic neglect, is rooted in a "lingering suspicion of black inferiority" stemming from the era of American slavery. According to historian, Dr. Eugene Walker, "Whites don't see it as exploitation. If anything, they see the black football players in the SEC as taking advantage of the university, because he's going to make the pros.” When one considers that many black SEC football players concur fully with Martin Kane in his assessment that "every black male child, however he might be discouraged from a career with a Wall Street brokerage firm or other occupational choices, knows he has a 'sporting chance' when he can run with a football." Because it is the one medium through which the physical attributes and athletic prowess of the black athlete provides him an opportunity to gain access to the white man's world of fame and fortune, Dr. Walker's observation merit consideration. Then, too, it may be for the increasing number of black SEC football players as James Baldwin wrote"Every black boy realizes, at once, profoundly, because he wants to live, that he stands in great peril and must find, with speed, a thing, a gimmick, to lift him up, to start him on his way. And it does not matter what the gimmick is. For some it is narcotics. For others it is crime. For more than a few the only gimmick that seems feasible is football."2 Donald Spivey contends that the Civil Rights Movement played a pivotal role in desegregating SEC football. He also points out that "college sports" support of the Civil Rights Movement was born out of nothing more than the need for black players. Harry Edwards tends to imply that the rise of black athletes nationwide is due in large measure to a lack of role models in other areas. He maintains that the great heroes in the black community are the nationally known black athletes such as Michael Jordan, Dwight Gooden and Herschel Walker and not physicians, college professors, or 200 engineers. In a similar manner. Art Rust said, "there have been efforts to detract from this in the black community, but virtually with no success." These perceptions give credence to the view that the rise of black athletes on SEC and other college campuses are almost unilaterally orientation toward becoming another hero within the black community. Edwards characterizes the syndrome as "the unidimensional success story: the great athlete." Former Clark College athletic director Leonidas Epps, takes the explanation further: Football is a demanding game. It is played by hungry people. The majority of black football players come from average, hard-working families. Not many doctors' nor lawyers' sons turn out to be great college or professional football players. There are exceptions but most of those kids have different lifestyles. But the life of a poor black is on the average a demanding one. Football is a game which requires you to go out in the dirt and sweat. If the black football players gets into college and his athletic skills are good enough, the dirt and sweat is a medium through _ which he has an opportunity to be successful. After all, his life to that point has paralleled the demands of the game.3 Desegregated intercollegiate athletic helped somewhat changed racial attitudes in the SEC and throughout the South. Yet, one must point to both the business-like motives of winning on the part of athletic administrators and the "unidimensional success" interest of black athletes as the primary reason that a large pool of black football players began attending SEC schools. And it was the proven 201 excellence of black athletes which continues to shroud his skills under a cloud of racial myths.4

B. THE IRRECONCILABLE ADVERSARIES: HUNGER VS HEREDITY By 1974, every SEC school fielded black football payers, and the scope of integrated athletics competition within the conference was no longer limited to football. Commencing with Kenny Saddler, a black basketball player at Tulane in 1968 and Darvin Bond, a black quarter-miler recruited by Tennessee in 1969, the cadre of black SEC athletes had expanded to include other sports. Even though considered to be token in numbers, they were there and clearly established themselves as viable SEC athletic entities. It is plausible, as was indicated earlier, that the expanded pool of black SEC athletes originated from the competitive nature of SEC football and the accompanying business-like motives of "The Holy Day” enterprise. On the other hand, "the unidimensional success story" of the conference's black athletes can not be subjugated to a minor role. Regardless of the interrelationship between desegregation, the Civil Rights Movement, and the complexity of factors involved in desegregating intercollegiate athletic in the SEC, which propelled the black athlete to a place of prominence, it was quite clear that their athletic excellence was a proven asset during the 1970s. It was then, as it is now in some quarters, that the connotation of "black athletic superiority" which aligned itself with 202 hereditary factors, emerged as an explanation for the prowess of black athletes in the SEC and other conferences. Even today, it remains a question which appears to have no definitive answer, but there are many theories, beliefs, and sheer myths. The myth of the black male's racially determined, inherent physical and athletic superiority over the white male rivals the myth of black sexual superiority in antiquity. While both are well lived in the "Blacklore" and folk beliefs of American society, in recent years the former has been subject to increasing emphasis due to the overwhelming disproportionate representation of black athletes on predominantly white collegiate football, basketball and track teams. There is also the issue of the number of blacks on baseball, basketball and football allstar rosters, on Olympic track, boxing nd basketball teams, and in various most-valuable-player categories. And, there is the myth of sports' inherent beneficence and the cultural tendencies in American society in general and black society in particular to exaggerate the priority placed upon sports achievement. In combination, these factors set up the black athlete for almost inevitable academic disaster. The classic case in the SEC occurred in 1986. Dr. Jan Kemp, Chairperson of English Studies, documented preferential treatment of athletes in the University of Georgia's remedial "developmental studies" program. During the trial in which she filed suit against the university, Kemp charged 203 that she had been fired from her teaching position for speaking out against this condition. At the opening of the trial, attorney Hale Almond said in defense of Georgia's methods of dealing with the academically unprepared athlete, "We may not make a university student out of him, but if we can teach him to read and write, maybe he can work at the post office rather than as a garbage man when he gets through with his athletic career." Of the 24 "athletes in question" mentioned in court during the Kemp trial, 23 were black. Adding insult to injury, Kemp further charged that "administrators and politicians ran the university like a giant plantation; recruiting 'mentally retarded' athletes who never had a chance of passing college courses." The court obviously agreed with Kemp. She was eventually awarded 1.8 million dollars and reinstated to her former position, Professor of English, in the developmental studies department.5 Harry Edwards contends that black athletic talent is sociological and psychological and has nothing to do with heredity. This view eliminates physiological and anatomical entities such as small ankle and flatfeet as contributing factors. Nevertheless, Georgia coach Vince Dooley believes that "there are some natural things blacks do better - speed, a kind of grace, maybe jumping." Other coaches, such as Pat Dye of Auburn and Galen Hall of Florida voice similar opinions of black athletic excellence. Bear Bryant 204 concluded that "a lot of it has to do with drive." It is plausible that the beliefs of Dye, Hall, and Bryant, combined with similar thoughts of others throughout the nation, support the vague notion that black athletes are "suited" for certain positions.6 Anyone who has been in a locker room or has played in any kind of game involving blacks and whites knows that these myths are not true. To suggest that racial differences in sports are due to physical structure, heredity, and certain basic racial lifestyles cannot obscure the racism that exists in sports, for sport, in a very real sense, is a microcosm of the larger society. Anybody who has lived in a black skin and played any kind of ball involving blacks and whites, knows that there is discrimination in sports. It is also quite apparent now that the white SEC athlete's plight is not really much different from her black counterparts. The main difference is that the white athlete does not know how bad the situation is and the black one often does. Therefore, many of the generalizations about favoritism, stacking, and authoritarianism that relate to the circumstances of black SEC players also relate to the circumstances white players. Nevertheless, some SEC whites indulge in a kind of jensenism: blacks cannot think, but they can run! Much of the research on race and physical performance such as running and jumping, indicates that when socioeconomic 205 backgrounds are matched, there are really no significant differences between the races in basic things like running and jumping. Stacking or grouping of blacks at certain positions is one outcome of the stereotypic thinking about black athletes. These various stereotypes have developed in the black athlete's mind, in the white athlete's mind, in the coaches' minds, and even in the fan's minds.7 In the SEC, as in college football nationwide, blacks tend to be channeled toward "Speed" positions such as wide receiver, running back and cornerback. Of 19 projected starters at wide receiver in the SEC in 1986, 17 were black. Of 21 starting running backs, 18 were black. Of 20 cornerbacks, 18 were black. However, the SEC tends to be moving in the direction of recruiting more black defensive linemen. This also appears to be a national trend. Since huge defensive linemen are not noted for being fleet-of-foot, this tendency suggests that whatever black athletic excellence represents, it is not entirely a matter of speed. The myth, in reality, was refuted in the SEC during the early 1970s. While Richmond Flowers, a white sprinter at Tennessee was the fastest athlete in the conference, Alabama's biggest quick - touch down threat came from a player who reversed the racial stereotype. Wide receiver Joey Jones, a white athlete, was the fastest player on the team.8 There is still some resistance in the SEC by some white athletes to black captains and black quarterbacks; and that 206 didn't occur a decade ago. When it begins to look as though blacks are moving to positions where they might be able to control certain significant segments of the game, various things are done to deter them. In these days of continuing civil rights activism and civil rights acts, however, it is difficult to make these deterrents obvious. Subsequently, there remains a persistent belief among some black and white athletes and coaches that there are physiological as well as intellectual differences which, ironically, are not attributable to the genetic legacy of race, but to cultural bias as the deciding factors in black athletic excellence. This would confirm Edwards and Spivey's view that if blacks appear to be superior athletes by the time they get into college athletics, it is because they are the survivors of years of intense competition within the black community for the few sport roles available. And so the best evidence is that black excellence in athletics is the result of intense concentration and work toward that "unidimensional success story," as Edwards called it, or in Leonidas Epps' simpler language, "football is played by hungry people."9

C. LONG AS THEY PLAY GOOD SARDY Despite the turbulent occurrences of civil rights, racial equality and the mythological plausibles of black vs. white, to the horde of college football fans in stadiums across the SEC, Saturday's game appear the same. The team stand along each sideline, their padded uniforms a crisply 207 colorful . Players and coaches alike wear faces frozen in an intensity so unmerciful as to approach comedy. College football, nowhere more than in the South, is still pageantry, passive and violent. But the full-throated prayers of Saturday's thousands now mingle with quickening voices of dissent. Though the primary focus of afternoons in the fall remains the game, disturbingly frank questions about grade point averages and graduation rates have intruded into the once seemingly pristine world of won-loss records and third-down situations. Off the field, SEC football is changing. Minimum standards in the classroom have been raised and tutorial programs have been beefed up. At some schools, additional study facilities, compute labs and even specialized libraries have been added for athletes. Still, critics contend that the reforms are small steps that do not go far enough to effect a needed revolution in SEC athletics. To do that, they argue, revenue-producing sports must be restructured and the commercialization of football ended. Among most SEC institutions, especially a number of state universities, the image of "football factories" still holds. At those SEC institutions where reform is taking place, administrators find themselves walking an increasingly precarious fence separating their faculty's devotion to academic excellence from their powerful and wealthy alumni, 208 with their overriding goal of putting a winner on the field.10 A score of scandals that lifted the cover from a smelly brew of SEC cheating and exploitation, and tainted the action on the field, has prompted many university presidents and newly resurgent faculties to draw a line in the Southern dust as if to say, "Enough!" Nevertheless, away from such a rarefied atmosphere, the pressures for a strong athletics, despite a growing legacy of scandal, is caught in an inflationary spiral in which dollars convert to victories and victories to dollars, a cause-and-effect relationship that encourages academic compromises. Little or nothing has been done to address the fundamental cause of the recent scandals - the competitive pressures created by commercialization. Virtually every SEC school that has endured severe academic embarrassment has emerged from this self-study continuing to embrace implicitly, if not explicitly, the notion that its athletic programs will be "competitive." In the present environment, this means that the cycle of spending to win and winning to spend will continue. Despite agitation among some university faculties for reform, in many instances the athletically rich grow richer as they attempt to ream in on the cusp of academic respectability, while the sounder academic institutions point to high graduation rates and generally low victory totals.11 209 At many SEC schools, the athletic department operates as the entertainment division of the university. True reform will come only with a restructuring of athletics away from the current system where many athletes hope to use college as a vehicle to the pros while ignoring academics, a process fitting square pegs into round holes. In the present process, many SEC athletes are likely to have their attention focused elsewhere. Despite evidence of limited insurgencies among some Southern faculties into the world of college athletics, the use of a running back in a bowl game who had not attended class in two months is indicative of the fact that winning, with its accompanying dollars, remains the overriding concern at many institutions. When you have four "Deep South" bowl games which collectively pay each SEC team more than five million dollars, it is as if a school is willing to take risks at the Admissions Office that there will be big payoff. Outside the office of one SEC football coach hangs a needlepoint sign that reinforces a point about college athletics being made by its critics. The sign reads "Football is not a matter of life or death, its more import than that."12 It is this mentality surrounding intercollegiate football in the SEC that is tempting college athletes, especially blacks, to be receptive to monetary gains, reducing them to servitude, putting them in great stadiums and arenas, asking them to sell tickets and put on 210 television shows worth millions, and requiring them to be boffo box office and at the same time saying, "Lookee here, kid, you so much as touch a dollar bill and we'll fry you on a public pit, "barbecue." Yet, the ruins of the system is blamed on the players when, in truth, they are victims of a myth nearly a century old. I tend to argue that SEC athletes deserve a better shake from bigtime, money-making games that are more professional than amateur. The athlete knows everybody's making money except him. He can sense the unfairness of that. He feels he's being cheated by whomever the powers are. SEC coaches get rich, six figures for shoe deals, for television shows and heaven knows what other perks. According to information released by the University of Georgia Athletic Association, head football coach and athletic director, Vince Dooley, earned $137,656 in outside income in 1987, while Florida's head football coach, Galen Hall, was paid $203,000. When everyone in the college game takes the money, how can we expect the sport's most impressionable people in the system not to put a hand under the table for their share. Greed begins at the top. If the coach is an athlete's role model, it follows that the athlete wants a free car, a tv show, a contract, more ink than a U.S. senator, and so much money he has to hire people to alphabetize and file it. Already confused by this pro/amateur system of SEC football, the players are then 211 made to feel ashamed for taking real money for their work. An athletic grant-in-aid, Ok. Room and board, Ok. But is that real money? Can you take a girl on a date with it? The athlete wants cash. And they're getting it at many SEC institutions.13 But scandal is old hat in the SEC. So common-place were the revelations of covert aid to players in the South that in 1939, Newsweek columnist John Sander, satirized the subject: At a certain SEC institution, when I told them I had come to expose graft and professionalism, they told me to use the exposure entrance "around back." In 1956, New York Herald Tribune columnist Red Smith wrote of an affair in which another SEC school paid its players nearly $71,000. He considered that to be a low wage for such heavy duty. He wrote, the old question of defining labor's fair share in the fruits of labor is a continuing problem in college football. There is something scandalous about a college collecting hundreds of thousands in gate receipts and paying off the help with a bowl of rice. What is for Mr. Smith a bowl of rice is nothing so meager in the view of today's SEC administrators. They see a great feast of goodies. They see athletes strutting in great stadiums, paying for buildings, paying to support non-revenue sports and paying for equipment. No one even wonders if this use of the athlete's money is fair. It's been done that way so long that everyone assumes it's alright. Decent men such as say, "It's different in colleges than in the pros. Cities, counties, states build stadiums for the pros. Here we have to build our own." Did anyone ever ask the athletes what they thought about that? Or did anyone ever ask an athlete's representative? Did anyone ever ask an athlete if he'd take a pay cut so the university might build a better stadium? Fat chance. No one asks the athlete's opinion about anything much more important than which bowl game to play. The athlete is asked to run, not speak. Kindly people will look after him, even teach him, guide him to growth as a person. It's a paternalistic notion, the boy under the father's wing. And that's good. But giving up your freedom is too high a price to pay for it. No one should be surprised that Bo Jackson said that he received money to play. It is a sad commentary, but one might have been surprised if he said that he played for free. Former University of Tennessee player Joe Cofer has stated that he received illegal cash payments while at the university, confirming charges he made in a controversial sports article. Cofer told the Tennessean that he was willing to take a lie detector test to prove his comments. Cofer, a black athlete, played at Tennessee between 1982 and 1984 and he said he received $1,000 in 1983. Cofer maintains that the money came from an "assistant coach," and charged the payment was made after he complained to head coach Johnny Majors. Let's not kid ourselves, payments are made. Auburn 213 once had a coach caught passing money to a football player in a locker room.14 Some coaches recognize the high cost. Billy Brewer, Ole Miss' football coach said, "People say athletes aren't treated the same as regular students. And they're right. Athletes are treated worse." It is not extreme to say an SEC player gives up freedom for a football scholarship. If during the recruiting process at a great university such as Alabama, the player should want to meet its prominent alumni who might serve as living examples of a school's good work, sorry, that's against the rules. You can't meet the alumni until after you enter school. No longer can a player go to dinner with just anyone. He is under watch. He must take a drug test whenever the paternalistic bosses say so. He must sign papers saying he is honest. Life is regimented: breakfast at the training table, study halls, lunch at the training table, go to classes, practice, study hall, dinner at the training table, study hall. It's two jobs at once, student and athlete. To keep his scholarship, he must maintain a course toward graduation while also playing bigtime SEC football. No easy deal there. Heaven forbids that he should take a ten dollar bill from a coach. If he does, and gets caught, he's a crook. A cheater for accepting a few extra dollars over the length of his career when the university makes millions with his help. Pat Dye, Auburn University football coach, lamented: 214

We're calling kids cheaters. That has a sour ring to it. Cheaters. Who's cheating whom, anyway? We're cheating athletes of basic human needs. If schools don't satisfy those needs, players will find a way with agents, gamblers, drug dealers and jock-sniffers with the plantation-master mentality. We can't continue to legislate against human dignity. Yet, there must be guidelines. But Moses came down with two tone tables and 10 rules - and we can't follow them. So how can we follow 400 pages in the SEC manual? I'm a coach. I'm offered $150,000 to wear an athletic shoe, $75,000 to schedule a game, $50,000 to drink mineral water. One game with Alabama will pay our entire scholarship program for a year. Why should we have this and a kid can't get his tonsils out or a kid can't get home at Christmas to see his blind, 82 year old grandmother who is dying? Cheaters will cheat. There's no way to stop that. What the rules do mostly is make it impossible for decent people to treat their players fairly. If it sounds good or eels good, it's illegal. Its frustrating to be slammed up against the rules every day. You can't do anything for the kids. They ought to just let us use common sense. Nobody's trying to rob the bank here. We just want to treat the kids fairly. But you get into interpretations of the rules. It gets so when you want to take deep breath, you call the SEC office and ask if it's Ok to take a deep breath or should we limit it to a shallow breath? hey say rules ar rules. Don't give me that crap. There was a rule blacks had to ride in the back of the bus. There was a rule women couldn't vote. There was a rule that Jews had to war stars on their breast. A rule is only good when it protects mankind, not when it suppresses.15 SEC coaches simply must resign themselves to the fact they are no longer involved with the eduction process, but with entertainment. Game times are dictated not by weather, not by tradition, not by customers who buy tickets and drive overnight to the stadium. SEC games begin when television 215 wants them to begin because TV may kick in an extra $200,000 that day. SEC football players also know that the university makes money from their work. It may be a $2 million day on many SEC campuses during the past football season, 90,000 fans at $30 a pop, $800,000 from TV, $25,000 from a bank to paint its name on the scoreboard. The athlete? He gets a scholarship and the promise of an education. If he takes a dollar from an agent, all hell breaks loose. The athlete's picture shows up on page one of the newspapers, as if he was an ax murderer or a self- inflated politician puffed up within a sea of political bribes and kick-backs. For as tenacious a hold on hypocrisy as our politicians have, one need move a finger only a short way down the current list of phony baloneys to bump into SEC football.17 SEC institutions must also share the blame for locking athletes into athletic contracts at coolie wages and keeping alive the lie of "amateur." When Herschel Walker was a sophomore, but he was worth eleven million dollars to the University of Georgia, he played for tuition, room and board, a $5,000 deal. And there the low cost of players is the foundation of a business arrangement that ties the SEC to the NFL. The SEC uses its poverty-wage players to build a billion dollar industry that serves as a player development system for the NFL. For such player development, the NFL pays nothing in real cash. In return 216 the NFL agreed until 1989 not to sign a college player before his eligibility had expired. Such an arrangement guaranteed the SEC their best players for four years. While the SEC assured the success of pro football, a Bo Jackson was told that he could not work at his profession until the end of his senior year and a Herschel Walker was severely criticized when he challenged this code. One wonders where does any member of the SEC get off criticizing an athlete for his betrayal. SEC football is built on a betrayal of its athletes. The agent issue is that SEC is a vivid illustration of that betrayal, for it speaks of money, the dark heart of college athletics, the dirty little engine that drives the hypocritical enterprise. When Alabama filed a three million dollar civil suit against a sports agent for deceptive trade practices and tampering with two of its athletes, the university put a $800,000 value on their absence during the 1987-88 season. This action clearly sends out a that athletes are being exploited by placing a value on the loss of their services. Even worse, it is indicative of the fact that contemporary SEC football players compete in a professional arena, but they're expected to never touch the money, come to the water, but don't drink. That is an unrealistic expectation; unfair, even cruel. SEC poohbahs will try to persuade you they're doing what's best for the kids. Presidents, athletic directors, and coaches think that anyone who can use 217 football to pay for an education is getting a good deal. The word "priceless" comes into their conversations.17 The "play-no pay" syndrome has clearly impacted negatively on many of the SEC's black athletes. It may be that the black athlete takes the agent's dirty money because there is no clean money around. Then, too, it may be simpler than that. For the most part, the black athlete is not use to those dollars. It intrigues him. Accepting the money may be his way of getting back at the system. Concurrently, most black athletes don't have any money. The majority of them come from one-parent homes in lower-class situations. Some of them have to work to help out back home. For others, it's greed. They get to live in the fast lane. It's a fashion show for them. They've never seen this type of money before. Maybe their parents are on welfare. You can't expect them to say "no."18 The SEC doesn't know how deep the abuse of athletes runs. This ignorance is puzzling. Most of those people are products of the college athletic system. Yet, they seem not to see. Is the mythology of college sports - the Frank Meriwell, old college try malarkey - so strong that no one, not even the players, recognizes the abuses? Have the slaves accepted the cotton fields as their place? Because some masters are benevolent, does that absolve them of the guilt for imposing on a weaker class a system of labor that guarantees maximum profits for the boss and minimum wages for the worker? Why is it Ok for a coach to reap the rewards of the capitalistic system, but wrong for a player? That's an outrage. It's a pro game in the SEC. Colleges sell tickets. They buy rich coaches. They go on TV. They beg boosters for millions of dollars. By robbing their athletes of money they helped produce, the SEC is engaged in a cynical pretense that reveals, in the poet Whitman's phrase, "a hollowness at heart." SEC institutions pretend to pay obeisance to the god of amateurism. They pretend to be part of the educational system, which is crucial, for it allows them to exist without paying taxes. Of course, if athletic departments admitted being professional, Uncle Sam would want his share of the take. Then the SEC would have to be part of the free enterprise system. By pretending to be amateurish in the interest of hiding money from Uncle Sam, the schools are also relieved of the obligation of paying the workers a real wage. Infuriated by the pose of amateurism, the great sportswriter Paul Gallico wrote in 1937 that southern football was coming into its own "as the leader in the field of double-dealing, deception, sham, cant, humbug and organized hypocrisy."19 The principles under which the SEC operates are economically sound. Ethically and morally, they smell to high heaven. There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from their stubborn adherence outmoded principles, and that is that as long as they stick to them they can continue to 219 get football players for next to nothing. If this sad set of priorities stays intact, then the exploitation of the black student-athlete in the SEC will be as difficult as ever to curtail, let alone stop completely. SEC schools recruit coast to coast. Most often than not, their players come from poor circumstances and are asked to move into a college life unlike anything they've known. Coaches see the stress of that adjustment. They see players who have only canvas shoes, blue jeans, who don't have the spare change for a hamburger, a tube of toothpaste, trying to scrape living expenses together. But the athlete finds greater fault with a system that leaves him living in poverty when he knows he has a talent the university uses to make big money. If SEC coaches, administrators and fans wonder why an athlete gets involved with the "money rule" in SEC football, the black athlete doesn't.20 Despite the SAT scores, grade-point averages, and scandal in the 1980's, more black athletes are playing SEC football as Americans and athletes first, and as blacks second, than ever before in the history of SEC sports. They are setting more records, enjoying louder applause and they are more in demand than they were during the previous era. Consequently, their total contribution to SEC athletics in performance and volumes of thrills for the fans are greater than ever. On the purely racial side of the fence, the black athletes are, perhaps, more responsible for the ever- 220 rising tide of pride among blacks in the "Deep South" than any other group. For the black athlete dwells in a world characterized by a more nearly ideal Americanism than any other group. For the most marvelous gift of athletics is its faculty for making heroes of underdogs, of lifting the downtrodden up to solid ground. And the most valuable physical attributes anyone brings to athletics are strength, stamina, speed and agility, desire and instinct for the game, and a sense of rhythm or timing. The black athlete's background of toil and sweat and battling with life for mere survival fits him aptly for the game, whatever it be, in which he has a chance to compete on even terms. Although he is low man on the economic totem pole, this background has enabled the black athlete to step in as a door breaker to progress for his fellow Americans of color in varied walks of life not directly connected in any way with SEC athletic, and the proof to the world that democracy can work.21 The black football player in the SEC finds freedom and some degree of equality solely confined to the playing field. Even though they are accepted as an integral and vital part of SEC football and their importance has become so great that it is now impossible for a "Deep South" team to win a championship without them playing an important role, racial segregation persists. Social gathering after practices and games are still done largely along racial lines and at training tables throughout the conference, 221 blacks and whites still tend to congregate separately at meals. And yet, old-line southerners with longstanding racial prejudices such as former governors Lester Maddox and George Wallace, two of the South's sternest segregationists, whooped and hollered when Herschel Walker and Bo Jackson scored touchdowns for their favorite team. But like most white southerners, the joy derived from the scoring of a touchdown is not directly attributed to an individual who just happen to be black. It is the dark heart of the southerner's lust for football and that of a mentality which, for two decades, have claimed, through integration, to have generally improved conditions for blacks, in the South.22 The assumption is that the desegregation of SEC football has contributed to an improvement in race relations and understanding in the South. While that is plausible, civil rights was never the game plan of the SEC. Those "Deep South" schools which integrated their athletic programs after the sit-ins, marches, beatings, and bombings did so specifically to achieve some balance in terms of their competitiveness with football powers that were already using black players. One needs only to recall Bear Bryant's statement after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the USC in 1970. Conversely, the competitiveness on the part of the black athlete has proven to be no panacea for racial equality and justice in the SEC nor the South. There 222 are those who would argue that the stardom of the black football player in the SEC has had no serious effect on racism in the "Deep South." I would argue, however, that desegregated SEC football has had an impact on racial attitudes in many southern college towns, but mainly among those who have engaged in integrated SEC sports competition, and not so much on the "Deep South” on the sideline. Nevertheless some southern attitudes are changing. In the past, SEC institutions as a whole have put more emphasis on muscles instead of brains and football instead of education. In the 1980's attitudes are changing because political leaders and university administrators realize that athletics, especially football, should not be the flagship of their institutions. Subsequently, SEC institutions, whose football teams are ranked annually among the nation's best, are trying to muscle their way into higher education's elite with a new emphasis on academic excellence. During the past few years, Georgia and Florida have began to join regional leaders, Virginia and North Carolina, in achieving a national reputation for excellence among public universities, especially in research. In addition to research, some SEC universities such as Tennessee and Auburn, have developed teacher education programs of national stature. More recently, Alabama and LSU have been making bids for prominence in international affairs. While it maybe plausible that these changes are an indicative of 223 the golden era for the black athlete in the SEC, one is left to ponder their implications as the halcyon signal to truly desegregate the holy day. For as Lewis Grizzard implied, when you have 80,000 potbellied, beer-guzzling alumni, graft-seeking politicians, and carpetbaggers unlimited saturating every SEC football arena each Saturday afternoon during the Fall, with unmitigating anticipation that their hard-hearted [black] lions will destroy the meekly [Christian] opponent, nothing seems to matter except their lions feast well on this day. And the parley among the aristocracy reveals a mentality about SEC football which goes thusly: Did you read what the paper said? Bout throwing rocks at dem' black marchers. I hear dem' blacks want to change the state flag so it don't look like the rebel flag no more. Naw, you know I don't read nothing but the sports page. What I read is that they bout to run a lot of dem' blacks slap out of college football. Oh, I like em' [blacks]. Don't like havin' my daughter marry one, but if they don't let Georgia have dem' good black players the Dogs aint gonna be much account no more. Auburn neither. Said it right there in the paper. You know how everybody's been hollerin' about black players not being no good in school work. Remember what that Greek fellow said bout dem' havin' no necessities. I mean like Brent Fullwood at Auburn who never did go to no classes. They got this new rule now that says if you don't make 700 on some fool test, you can't go to school and play football. And here's what else: The paper said there was 53 players that got turn down by SEC schools this year (1988) because they messed up on that test and 50 of em' were black. And Georgia has done lost 23 ball players and 22 of em' was black. Says here to dem' boys been gettin money from dem' communist agents and buying cars. Never can 224

catch any of em'. Dem' snail ankles let em' run too fast. And you know dem' that was in college had their hands out, drugged-out or stole the college blind and was kicked out. 01' boy Bias up North there died oft'n den' drugs and that big back down at Kentucky run- oft with everybody's jewelry last year. Lordy! Ain't somebody up north who don't let blacks in school because they [blacks] ain't no good is the same as they call us down here...racers. Uh, racists! Dang right thats what they are. Next time I see Hosea Williams protesting something, I'll tell him to do something about dem' black players gettin' a bad deal. 01' Hosea will get on that fellow Dan Rather and that'll be that. I don't know what all this stuff is bout. But I do know that we ought to leave dem' blacks alone so long as they play good on sardy.23

D. EPILOGUE Since the integration of Jackie Robinson into baseball in 1947, it has been frequently intimated that the integration of blacks into institutionalized sport has served as an example and model of that which can be attained in other social institutions. Many blacks and whites tended to believe that the most visible sign of change in race relations was the removal of the color barrier in sport which precipitated a significant development in bringing blacks into the mainstream of American life and thereby promoting American democracy; that the world of sport is an undeniable force in moving the United States toward total integration, and if only we could achieve in housing, in education, and in economic opportunity all the things we have achieved in sport, the 225 race problem in America would disappear. Thus, from the point of view of many who are outside of SEC football, it would appear that the black athlete has been totally integrated into southern society. In reality, however, although the black athlete has been partially integrated into a "Deep South" athletic system, he has not been integrated into southern white society. For once the black athlete on an SEC campus leaves the locker room, he is subjected to the same prejudices and discrimination as any other southern blacks. Although the involvements of blacks in many mainstream southern social institutions and other entities of southern culture remain severely restricted, the color of the black SEC athlete is often of no importance when the success of a particular SEC football team is highly valued by members of the dominant group. In fact, participation by black athletes is clearly encouraged and sanctioned by those who control and support southern teams associated with a particular SEC institution or city. Yet, within the same sports arena, even though a black football player is encouraged and permitted to play the role of athlete, he frequently experiences subtle or overt acts of segregation, discrimination, or racism similar to those he encounters in other social institutions and situations. This differential relationship between black athletes and predominantly white SEC institutions has been noted by both 226 members of the dominant and minority group since the commencing of integrated athletic competition in the SEC. As a result, at various times, SEC football has been praised for its role in integrating blacks into the mainstream of southern society, and at other times it has been vilified for fostering prejudice, discrimination, segregation and exploitation, causing some black athletes to suggest that they were happier back in the ghetto. CHAPTER VI NOTES ’Lerone Bennett, Jr., "Race Relations In The Mean 2000," Ebonv. 31 (August, 1985): 83-92; Alma Hill, "New Tactics To Attack Subtle Racism," The Atlanta Constitution. 29 Dec. 1987, Sec. C, p. 8.; Jane Hansen, "A New Wave of Segregation," ibid., 27 Sept. 1987, Sec. A, p. 1; James Jackson, Interview, Athens, Georgia, 7 Oct. 1986; , Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 21 Oct. 1986. For an indepth discussion and analysis of racial progress in America since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., see, Gerald Dunham, Echoes From The Mountain To p (Houston: Infinity, 1983) James Harkins, The Life and Death of Martin Luther Kina Jr. (New York: Athenum, 1989). Twenty years as the smoke and bloodshed of race riots scarred America, the Kerner Commission issued a memorable warning. It said America was heading toward "two societies, one black, one white— separate but unequal." America is an 'anniversary" oriented society, so only after two decades has the nation become painfully aware of what has been clear year after year. America has become several societies, three black, three white, at least two Hispanic— all separate and unequal. Lump all blacks together, as some are inclined to do, and you will find some worrisome changes over 20 years. In January 1968, black unemployment was 7.4 percent, or just over double the 3.6 rate for whites. In January 1988 black joblessness was 12.2 percent, almost two and a half times the white rate of 5.0 percent. These figures of economic malaise are reflected in the fact that in 1988 black America suffers much higher levels of divorces, desertion, births out of wedlock, drug abuse, and teenage homicides than was the case 20 years ago. But lumping all blacks together obscures an important truth. A growing number of blacks have moved into the affluent, holding powerful jobs, living beyond sight of the black world of poverty and crime. These blacks are not always separate or unequal. Whites tend to overstate the significance and the numbers of blacks who have moved into the power circles. Upstream corporate America is still not friendly waters for blacks. While there is a dismissally large black "underclass," there also is a large pool of whites who feel cheated and virtually hopeless. They have begun to identify their interests with those of aggrieved black families. That may be why a black candidate for the presidency, Rev. Jesse Jackson, could get 28 percent of the votes in the overwhelmingly white state of Maine. The political world 227 228 has produced some of the enduring racial gains since that gloomy Kerner Commission report. Clearly, few Americans would have imagined then that 6,681 blacks would be holding public office, 4,287 of them in the South, or that blacks would be mayors of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New Orleans and many other cities. They represent the fruits of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a law that the Reagan Administration tried but failed to disembowel. Many black and white leaders alike have charged that his administration has created a climate that allows racism to flourish. Undoubtedly the Reagan Administration's policies have widened the gap that separates the races. When you have a leadership whose policies at the domestic level are insensitive at best and assaultive at worse, you find that the trickle down theories that don't work in economics do work in attitudes and behavior. As for other laws, like the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the many court decrees ordering the desegregation of public schools, the 20-year record is shameful. Jim Crow is still king in the makeup of neighborhoods and school populations in America. Even at the college level, the hope engendered by Lyndon Johnson's Federal Aid to Higher Education Act of 1965 has given way to a mean-spiritedness that denies minorities scholarships and keeps many youngsters of great potential out of medical, law, engineering and other graduate schools. Unless America soon elects socially brave and enlightened political leaders, who will stand against both racism and selfishness, 20 years from now we shall bemoan another anniversary of the Kerner Commission's Report and of America's drift to nine societies, some black, some white, some Hispanic, and some Asian, all separate and unequal, and all hostile to the point of mutual destruction. With civil rights now apparently on the back burner, racists are more likely to display their feelings, resulting in incidents such as those in Howard Beach (N.Y.), Cummings (6A.) and hundreds of other places across the country. But in this time of turbulence, Reagan supporters still dispute charges that racism has been nurtured during his tenure in the White House, and they say there's no evidence of growing racial tension. According to William Bradford Reynold, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the media has directed the nation's attention to the incidents at Howard Beach and Cummings and the few other isolated events elsewhere and they do not represent a rising tide of racism. Further, Reynold contends that there has yet to be produced any evidence to back up this bold assertion, and, indeed, all the available data collected on such matters indicate quite the opposite. For 229 Reynold's view see, Wayne Minshew, "A Worrisome Return to Bigotry." The Atlanta Constitution. 14 Nov. 1986, Sec. A, p. 19. In direct contrast to Reynold's argument, Justice Department figures show that the number of racial incidents reported to the government jumped from 99 in 1980 to 276 in 1987. As the numbers go up so does criticism of the administration's apparent indifference toward civil rights. It continues to be cited as the main reason behind the resurgence of racism, but the nation's deteriorating economic condition can't be overlooked as a contributor. The slumbering economy has reduced the number of available jobs, facing working class whites and a shrinking white middle class to share jobs, economic benefits and health care with blacks. This has spawned some racial conflicts because many whites believe that blacks are no longer entitled to special privileges and view affirmative action, quotas and other remedies for centuries of racism as unfair advantages. When people become frustrated, they look for someone to blame, and often times, blacks are the targets when that frustration turns to violence. For this data of the Justice Dept., see Minshew, "Worrisome," p. 19. 2Dr. Joseph Lowery, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 22 Sept. 1986; Dr. Eugene Walker, Interview, Decatur, Georgia, 10 Sept. 1986; David Stanley Eitzen, "Black Americans In Sports: Unequal Opportunity for Equal Ability," Civil Rights Digest. 5 (August, 1972): 20-34; James Baldwin, Go Tell It On The Mountain (New York: Folkways Publishers, 1958), pp. 139-40. See also, Richard Lapchick, Broken Promises: Racism In American Snorts (New York: H. Wolff, 1974). This syndrome, black inferiority, exists not only among whites, but among blacks themselves. It is so pervasive in American culture that many blacks believe, including many among the leadership class, that blacks cannot compete effectively on an intellectual basis. The mythical quality of white portrayal of black athletes loom cloudlike over most black athletes from their first serious involvement in organized sports, typically in high school. It is here that competition ensues for the first major rewards of athletic participation — a collegiate athletic scholarship and presumably the opportunity to achieve a college education. For the black athlete, high school is also where the myths begin to unravel. Black athletes have always been confronted with a multifaceted burden in the academic setting. First there has been the stereotype of the "dumb jock" who speaks English as if it were a foreign language, a burden the black athlete shares with athletes in general. Secondly, there has been the traditional American presumption of innate, race-linked black physical superiority. Nevertheless, based upon assumption of black 230 race-linked athletic prowess and the myth of sport's inherent institutional beneficence, the idea persists that in the arena of athletic competition blacks have a sporting chance. For additional information on this subject see, Phillip M. Hoose, Necessitiesl Racial Barriers In American Sports (New York: Random House, 1989). So over the course of their development, since little is expected of black athletes intellectually, many eventually come to demand nothing of themselves academically. Therefore, what begins as a childhood dream of achieving the affluence of professional sports stardom is by the end of high school already well along toward becoming a last chance and highly dubious career possibility. The real tragedy is that there is absolutely nothing deficient in those young people's intellectual capabilities. They have simply been victimized by a society and a sports institution that presumes, and therefore tolerates, an almost mutually exclusive relationship between intellectual and athletic excellence - - and doubly so for black athletes. The net result is an undercurrent of "those guys can't graduate, can't even learn," rationalization for the disproportionate academic failure among black athletes. Black males' tendency toward academic unpreparedness is directly related to the combination of black cultural orientation toward sports as a "unidimensional success story” and the "Dumb Negro" stereotype. The perception of sports as the only way out leads to such concentration on practicing sports from earliest childhood that academics are neglected. By the time many black athletes have completed their high school sports eligibility and begin seeking admission to college in order to further pursue their dreams of sports stardom, so little has been demanded of them academically for so long that no one any longer expects anything of themselves intellectually. Another school of thought suggests that the problems with academics are linked directly to the recruitment of blacks who are perceived as having no legitimacy on campus other than to play football and basketball. This does not apply exclusively to the SEC. It is at Harvard, Michigan, Oklahoma, all over the country. According to a 1978 HEW study of some 59 universities with highly visible athletic programs, the black collegiate athlete is plagued by substantial academic problems from day one. Owing to often inadequate academic preparation in predominantly black high schools, a substantial white middleclass cultural bias, outright racism in American education, inadequacies in academic counseling, and a substantial lack of academic emphasis in athletic departments beyond that necessary to ensure athletic eligibility, an estimated 70 to 80 percent 231 of the black athletes who survive high school educational experiences to go on to college never graduate. What is even more revealing is that they tend to major or enroll in "basketweaving" courses, leading no where and usually at the request and with the counseling of their coaches or athletic departments' "academic counselors" whose principle concern is all too often to protect scholarship investments by keeping athletes eligible. Thus, if an athletic scholarship and a "free education" do little to promote black socioeconomic mobility or to invalidate myths concerning the black American experience in sports, the realities confronting blacks in the collegiate ranks can only be termed shattering. Sociologists and historians, such as Harry Edwards and Eugene Walker, believe that even the athletes who are poorly prepared for college can learn, if adjustments — including diagnostic testing and conscientious tutoring — are made by the universities. It is generally believed that academic neglect is worse in the Southern schools because the South tends to have poorer (elementary and secondary) schools for blacks generally. Consequently, in the south, blacks tend to enter college needing more help, more diagnostic testing, and they're not getting it. But James Jackson, a black player started at quarterback for the University of Georgia in 1989 says "If I'd come just to play football and come out without a degree, I'd feel I'd been used. But as long as I'm doing what I need to do in class and get the help I need, I'm satisfied. And I think I've gotten the help. "An athlete can exploit himself, you know," says Mike Pitts, an All-American defensive end at the University of Alabama, who is now with the Atlanta Falcons. "On plantations, they never wanted blacks to excel. Never. The universities want the black athlete to excel on the football field and in the classroom. No university's football program wants a low graduate rate. When a school recruits an athlete, they should let him know that he may dream of playing professional football, but that dream should not be at the expense of his academic work.” For the comments of Jackson and Pitts, see David Davison, "Black Athletes Need To Set Goals Beyond Sports," The Atlanta Journal. 19 Aj>r. 1988, Sec. E, p. 12. That lesson is already coming painfully true even before college under the new standards, Proposition 48 or 5-1-6j) which in the Fall of 1988 has already cost 206 would-be freshmen — 175 of them black-eligibility for major college football nationwide. Now, with the "minimal first step" of the new NCAA regulation, there are at least the beginning of academic expectations for black athletes. Since 1973, when the standards were lowered, debate has raged over whether it is worse to recruit an academically 232 unprepared athlete, use up his eligibility and turn him out onto the streets without a degree, or to ignore him altogether during recruiting. Fortunately, those are not the only contemporary options. For an indepth discussion of the impact of Proposition 48, see William Gervin, "New Academic Rule Could Put Athletes In a Bind," NCAA News. 25 Apr. 1988, p. 3. 30onald Spivey, "The Black Athlete In Big-Time Intercollegiate Sports, 1941-1968," Phylon. 44 (1983): 116- 25; Edwin B. Henderson, The Black Athlete: Emergence and Arrival (New York: Publishers Company, 1968), pp. 131-33; Curtis Maher, "The Negro Athlete In America," The Los Anaeles Times. 24 Mar. 1968, Sec. C, p. 3; John Underwood, "In Black and White," Snorts Illustrated. 19 (February 24, 1968): 61-9; Harry Edwards, Revolt of The Black Athlete (New York: Free Press, 1969), pp. 107-9; Jack Olsen, "A Shameful Story," Sports Illustrated. 29 (July 16, 1968): 20-31; Pete Axthelm, "The Angry Black Athlete," Newsweek. 15 (July 3, 1968): 56-72; Leondias Epps, Interview, Atlanta, Georgia, 18 Aug. 1986. See also, E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1957); John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Knoft, 1980). The example of the black professional athlete in the black community shows the black youngster that he has something real to aspire to when he can run with a football or dribble a basketball. Due to the high visibility of black athlete role models, disproportionately high numbers of black youth are channeled into athletic career aspirations. Sports becomes a bridge out of the ghetto, but for how many. The number is terribly small. At the most, sports has led a few thousand blacks into a better life while substituting a meaningless dream for hundreds of thousands of other blacks. It has helped to perpetuate an oppressive system. For every Herschel Walker or Michael Jordan there are countless blacks who obviously had abundant will and determination to succeed, but who dedicated their childhoods and their energies to footballs and . If there were other ways out and up, they were blinded by the success of a few sports celebrities. Also contributing to this channeling process is the lower overall visibility of black success models in the other high-prestige occupational categories — lawyers, doctors, college professors, etc. These are the black doctors who never were, the black lawyers who are desperately needed, the black city planners who have never existed. This in large measure has been the major effect of sports on black youth aspiring to cease his "sporting chance," and it overrides the others. This channeling process tragically leads millions of blacks to pursue a goal that is foredoomed to elude all but an insignificant few. 233 There is little or no fall-back position for those black athletes who have dedicated their lives to achieving a pro sports career. Once the pro sports career eludes them, there is no place to apply their running, cutting, catching, tackling, blocking, shooting, and dribbling skills. So, not only are millions of black America's most aspirant and competitive young people systematically channeled onto a treadmill, but black society is denied the benefits of vital black skills development and, eventually, is burdened with additional under-contributors, non­ contributors, and, all too often, malcontributors, since the treadmill leads into a revolving door. Despite such claim, "every black has a sporting chance," the fact remains that upon analysis, American sports are revealed to be more treadmill than the fabled escalator providing escape from the deprivation afflicting the black community. And because of their interdependence with other institutional structures and social processes in America, sports constitute not only a treadmill for the overwhelming majority of aspirant black athletes, but also a cruel and wickedly subtle trap, ensnaring the whole of black culture and society. Thus, the persistence and the perpetuation of the belief that sports offer blacks unique opportunities for advancement is not supported by relevant literature. 4Art Rust, History of The Black Athlete (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1968), pp. 117-38; Henderson, Black Athlete, pp. 63-109; John D. McCallum, Southeastern Conference Football (Montgomery: Gateway Books, 1983), pp. 314-28; Axthelm, "Angry Black," pp. 56-8; Fred Zuga, "The Certified Athlete," Sports Illustrated. 13 (March 11, 1986): 16-23; Terence Moore, "You Can't Get Ahead If You Try," The Atlanta Constitution. 23 Aug. 1975, Sec. E, p. 10. Commenting on racial myths and the black athlete, Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., Director of the Institute of Afro-American Affairs at New York University, questions the concern about race and sport in America. He points out that we are not concerned about Czechoslovaks or Swedes in sports. Brown tends to believe that race is a very sensitive issue in our society and the predominantly white society generally attempts to suppress any concern about race which suggest that all is not well. According to Brown, racism in sports is an extension of the Kerner Report. Subsequently, why bother describing something you know is there? Since, many myths about the black athlete prevalent today has to do with the defensiveness of many Americans concerning race. Rather than indulge in self-fulfilling prophecies because we do not want to deal with the real issues, scholars should devote their energies toward trying to do something about racism in sports in order to dispel the myths. Generally, the researchers who look at race and sports are white scholars; there are very few blacks who deal with 234 this. Other than Harry Edwards, and a few black educators such as Roscoe Brown, Donald Spivey, Ocania Chalk, and Edwin Henderson, who cried in the wilderness for years and has documented the plight of blacks in all sports for the past fifty years, there are few blacks talking about sports. For additional information on this subject see Roscoe C. Brown Jr., "A Commentary on Racial Myths and the Black Athlete," in Daniel M. Landers, ed. Social Problems in Athletics: Essavs in the Sociology of Sport (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), pp. 168-73. 5McCallum, Southeastern, pp. 299-305; Ocania Chalk, Black College Sports (New York: Dodd-Mead, 1976), pp. 140- 97; Edwards, Revolt, pp. 1-20; Jack Olsen, "In An Alien World," Sports Illustrated. 29 (July 23, 1968): 30-43; Arnold Beisser, Madness In Sports: Psychological Observations on Sports (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967), pp. 143-52; pp. 123-30; James Jones and Adrian Ruth Hochnes, "Racial Differences In Sport Activities: A Look At Left-Paced Versus Reactive Hypotheses," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 27 (1979): 86-95; Robert Worthy, "Race and Athletic Performance." Paper presented at the Southeastern Psychological Association Meeting, Miami, Florida, Apr. 1977. For additional information on the Jan Kemp incident, see A1 Stanton, "Problems Found In Colleges' Remedial Programs," The Atlanta Inquirer. 5 Aug. 1986, Sec. C, p. 2; Lewis Grizzard, "One Dog Walking," The Atlanta Constitution. 11 July 1986, Sec. A, pp. 1-2. *Harry Edwards, The Sociology of Sports (Homewood, 111.: Dorsey Press, 1973), pp. 36-9; Hoose, Necessities, pp. 3-51; Hugh Cunningham, "Recruiting With Integrity," The Atlanta Journal. 12 Oct. 1986, Sec. D, p. 8; A. Abrahams, "Race and Athletics," Eugenics Review. 44 (1982): 143-47. See also, Roscoe C. Brown, "The Black Athlete in Perspective." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine and Barry McPherson, "Minority Group Socialization: An Alternative Explanation for the Segregation by Playing Position Hypothesis." Paper presented at The Third International Symposium on the Sociology of Sports, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, November, 1971. Confronted with the fact of blacks' undeniable athletic excellence, sports propagandists shifted from the line that "due to race-linked inferiority, blacks could never make it in the white sports world" to the line that "due to race-linked physical superiority, blacks were destined to dominate certain sports." As late as the 1970s there appeared, recurrently, in the major media entire series of articles essentially reiterating Kane and his informants views. For Kane's views, see Martin Kane, "An Assessment of Black Is Best," Sports Illustrated. 18 (January 12, 1971): 72-83. 235 rHoose, Necessities, pp. 3-51; Abrahams, "race," pp. 143-45; Kane, "Assessment," 72-83; John Loy, "Racial Segregation In American Sports, International Review of Sport Sociology 5 (1971): 5-24; David Stanley Eitzen and David C. Sanford, "The Segregation of Blacks By Playing Positions In Football," Social Science Quarterly. 55 (1977): 136-42. ®Terance Moore, "Position Segregation Keeps Blacks In Check," The Atlanta Constitution. 17 Dec. 1969, Sec D, p. 12; Ernest Reese, "Racial Makeup of The Southeastern Conference," Ibid., 18 Aug. 1985, Sec. D, p. 11; Barry D. McPherson, "The Segregation By Playing Position Hypothesis In Sport: An Alternative Explanation," Social Science Quarterly 55 (1975): 960-66; Eitzen and Sanford, "Segregation," pp. 948-59; Cunningham, "Recruiting;" p. 8; David Davison, "Recruiting Wars," The Atlanta Journal. 8 Feb. 1987, Sec. B, p. 19; Russ Bebb, The Big Orange: A Storv of Tennessee Football (Huntsville, Ala.: Strode Publishers, 1973), pp. 66-3; Bill Cromartie, Braggin' Rights: A History of The Alabama-Auburn Football Rivalry (Atlanta: Gridiron Publishers, 1978), pp. 61-62. It is significant to note that those black athletes who do qualify academically soon find that unless they are all- state, blue-chip, All-American, or otherwise certified as superior athletes, their chances of receiving an athletic scholarship are substantially lower than those of whites with comparable abilities. According to Jean Bartel, who traced the progress of athletes entering the freshman classes of 1977 over a ten year period, blacks received only six percent of the college athletic scholarships — 634 out of 10,698 granted during that period. By the mid- 1980s whites still appeared to be receiving slightly more than 94 percent of all collegiate athletic support. Once the athletic scholarship is achieved, the black athlete's problems multiply rapidly. He is frequently confronted with "stacking" or position segregation where in some on- the-field positions — particularly those presumed to carry greater leadership, decision making, and general intellectual responsibilities — are not available to him. Thus, many blacks who played quarterback, for example, in high school have had to adjust to playing "black positions" — perhaps defensive back, blocker, wide receiver, or running back — if they were to make the team at all. The study indicates that 35 to 40 percent of high school black athletes fail to qualify for athletic-scholarships solely because of academic deficiencies. It also reveals that many black athletes also found themselves considerably in debt after four years of competing for a college on what they believed to be athletic scholarships. Here the athlete finds out too late not only that he was attending college under the auspices of the EOP rather than an 236 athletic scholarship, but some substantial portion of his EOP funding was in the form of loans that he has to pay back because the EOP checks were issued in his name. Bartel concludes that black males are on the bottom of the graduation rate scale for athletes, but adds that findings in the National Longitudinal Study begun in 1972 indicate that black males are also on the bottom of the scale in graduation of overall American college student population For Jean Bartel, see Gail Thomas, "In Higher Education, Clock Ticking Backward For Black Athletes," NCAA News. 24 NOX. 1987, p. 4. 9Susan Howard, "QB's Role Is Now More A Black and White Issue," The Atlanta Journal. 12 Dec. 1987, Sec. D, p. 6; Bob Dart, "College Football's TV Deal Is Out of Bounds, The Washington Post. 16 Aug. 1990, Sec. A, p. 2; Maxie, "Keeping Up With The Joneses," The Atlanta Constitution. 21 Aug. 1990, Sec. D, p. 4; Sandra G. Castine and Glyn C. Roberts, "Modeling and The Socialization Process of The Black Athlete," International Review of Sport Sociology. 9 (1974): 59-74; R.S. Tobin, "Sports As An Integrator," Saturday Review. 21 (January 1967): 31-32; Harry Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be (New York: MacMillan, 1980), pp. 83-91; Epps, Interview. 10Kelvin Simmons, "Southeastern Conference Playbook," Southeastern Conference. 12 (August, 1953): 41-56; Lewis Grizzard, "Jes' Ain't Gonna Make The Kickoff," The Atlanta Constitution. 16 Nov. 1985, Sec. D, p. 6; McCallum, Southeastern. 248-50; Walter E. Weiland, "The Changing Science In Intercollegiate Athletics," The Physical Educator. 45 (March, 1988): 74-80; Foote, "Upgrading of Academics May Require Sacrifices in Sports” NCAA News. 16 Nov. 1987, p. 4; Tami Benham, "Affective Development and the Athlete," The Physical Educator. 42 (December, 1985): 34-71; Kenny Major, "The Graduates," Sports Illustrated. 66 (June 13, 1987): 60-64; Stanton, "Problems Found," p. 2; Joseph Durso, The Sports Factory (New York: MacMillan, 1981), pp. 31-72. 11Rich Hoffman, "Athletic Scholarship Not Enough," NCAA News. 4 May 1988, p. 4; Fred Garnar, "A Solution To Scandals In College Athletics," ibid., 24 Oct. 1987, p. 4; ibid., 17 Feb. 1988, p. 7; Foote, "Upgrading," p. 6; Richard Schultz, Public Needs A Truer Picture of College Athletics," NCAA News. 12 Oct. 1987, p. 1; Major, "The Graduates," pp. 60-4; David Kindred, "Ten Commandments For Cleaning Up College Athletics," Southside Sun. 1 March 1986, Sec. C, p. 3; Craig Nebb and Bruce Selcraig, "One Shock Wave After Another," Sports Illustrated. 65 (November 10, 1986): 18-23. For earlier and a more detailed discussion of this subject, see Edwin Hall, The Money Rule 237 in Athletics (New York: MacMillan, 1971); Henry Butler, Shall Football Be Mended or Ended (New York: Appleton, 1902) ; William Hutchinson, The Real Danger In Athletics (Philadelphia: Cary and Hart, 1955). 1zGeorge Will, "Tackling Corruption In America's Football Factories," The Atlanta Journal. 27 June 1985, Sec. C, p. 11; Stanton, "Problems Found," p. 2; Tom R. Thomas, "When The Adrenalin Flows," Scholastic Coach. 48 (September 1978): 106-10; Peter Gammons "One Woe After Another," Sports Illustrated. 65 (August 23, 1986): 28-34; Arnold Bessier, Madness. pp. 104-42; James Addison, Sports: The Competitive Edge (New York: Morrow, 1983), pp. 179-94. See also, Ken Denlinger, Athletes For Sale (New York: Crowell, 1975); Tippette, Saturday's (New York: MacMillan, 1975). Will, "Tackling," p. 11; Thomas, "Adrenalin," pp. 106- 10; Edwin Hall, The Money Rule In Athletics (New York: MacMillan, 1969), pp. 25-56; Jim Minter, "Lets Don't Kill Collegiate Athletics," The Atlanta Constitution. 11 Jan. 1987, Sec. E, p. 11. Hoffman, "Athletic," p. 4; Lewis Grizzard, "Coaches Seek to East Players Financial Load," The Atlanta Daily World. 9 Sept. 1986, Sec. B, p. 4; David Davison, "NCAA Ark For More Athletes Needs," ibid., 22 May 1987, Sec. C, p. 3; Bill Stern, "An Earlier Argument Against Pay For Play," NCAA News. 12 Oct. 1987, p. 24; Grant M. Gill, "Sport Specialization," The Physical Educator 44 (November 1987): 27-31. 14Hall, Money Rule, pp. 58-62; Butler, Shall Football, pp. 18-24; William Hutchinson, Real Danger, pp. 32-33; Rick Telander "The College Athlete," Sports Illustrated. 66 (August 26, 1986): 12-18; John Sander, "Cotton Patch Football," Newsweek. 13 (November 9, 1939): 19; Red Smith, "Sport Scans," New York Herald Tribune. 17 Jan. 1956, Sec. H, p. 21; McMillian Baggett, "Abusers Rip-Off $3 Million Annually, Southern News. 3 (July, 1988): 16-18; Lou Burnett, "Athletes Vie For A Place In The Sun," The Senior Tribune. 6 July 1989, Sec. B, p. 3; Michael Kelley, "Who Needs All That Abuse Anyway?" NCAA News. 25 Mar. 1988, p. 11. In too many instances, at too many institutions, college administrators and athletic officials have created a world in which athletics concerns dominate educational concerns. Remember the big-cat alumnus who trampled the president of Texas A&M and brought in Jackie Sherill? Are you aware of "The Family" at Alabama, who jeered at Joab Thomas, who would restore literacy to The Capstone, and Bill Curry, his unfamily coach? Where are the supporters of the academic side while all this is going on? According 238 to one writer, they are out lining the pockets of prospects with money, staking them to automobiles, and selling their "comp-tickets" in hotel lobbies. Cofer is only one among many "athlete-students" that college athletics departments have employed in exchange for a scholarshipped education and training for their careers, professional football. Indicative of the professional entity, there was this picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated, battle face turned on, pitching arm cocked, in his new Tampa Bay shirt, and beneath it "The NFL's $8 Million Man." Vince Testaverde, business major at the University of Miami, had made it in his real major, football. Tennessee head coach Johnny Majors disagrees. He points out that regulations apply to athletes of all races, adding that "to say we're exploiting the black kids today is no more than saying we were exploiting the white kids of the 40s, 50s, and 60s (before SEC schools had black players). I think the guy who would use a black kid to better himself without regard to the welfare or future of the black kid would do the same thing to a white." Clearly, exploitation can extend to whites, but like discrimination throughout the rest of American society, this exploitation tends to affect blacks "first and worst." Recent occurrences in college athletics are illustrative of that premise. It is no small wonder that the FBI which for years maintained a close watch over the efforts of black athletes to expose, dramatize, and organize themselves against exploitive forces in college athletics during the late 1960s is now busting collegiate coaches, athletic directors, and agents for crimes committed in the course of exploiting athletes — particularly black athletes — academically and athletically. In 1985, Dana Kirk, former basketball coach at Memphis State University and Bob Broadhead, former athletic director at LSU were charged with profiteering in athletics. Kirk, whose basketball teams have always been overwhelmingly black and nationally ranked, was cited for demanding an appearance fee for his teams beyond the normal contractual arrangements for individual games and tournament play. It is alleged that these fees ended up in his pocket as personal compensation. While Broadhead's infraction proved to be of a minor nature, Joe B. Hall, former basketball coach at the University of Kentucky, was scrutinized for his misuse of more than $30,000 in complementary tickets. Texas attorney general, Jim Mattox, has given Southern Methodist University, 's alma mater, until August 10, 1987 to provide him with all evidence documenting the participation of Governor Bill 239 Clements and other SHU officials in the schools pay-for- play policy. In July of 1986, a federal grand jury began proceedings in Chicago to investigate the dealings of New York-based sports agent Norby Walters. The grand jury requested various documents from more than 50 athletes, coaches, and university officials to determine if Walters committed fraud against the athletes for enticing them to sign before their eligibility period had expired. Athletes are asked to sign recertification documents for their scholarships each year. In signing the document, a player states that he has not been in violation of NCAA rules. Subsequently, it is against NCAA rules to accept cash or enter into an agreement with an agent. Violations could jeopardize the athlete's eligibility, conference wins and championships, earnings in bowl games, and television contracts. Skulduggery in college sports is as old as human nature, for the minute the law is implemented, someone looks for an edge whether in tactics (every football formation began as an attempt to bend the rules) or in personnel (cries of "Hessian" arose at the turn of the century when college disguised mercenaries as students). But, not since Sputnik in 1957 has there been such a vociferous national debate on education. Yet big time college football continues to menace the priorities of higher education, buy with television as its ally, the threat is now on a more ominous scale than it has ever been. One writer termed it a disease almost as perilous as inflation. Considerable money is out there to be made on the talents of athletes between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. College football has become a vast and lucrative industry. The current "scandal" in the SEC is the Norby Walters mess. He spent $1 million in the last four years to sign 60 college football players, overwhelmingly black. A single white athlete's name has yet to surface. The deal was, he would then represent the players in signing with NFL teams and get his cut. That this broke NCAA rules bothered Walters not a whit. Ohio State declared its Heisman Trophy candidate ineligible. Georgia, Auburn, Texas and Alabama lost players, but Walters' methods broke no law. Short of creating a police state, we cannot stop an agent from signing up a college player. It is foolish to think that Norby Walters is the only agent who paid college players before they were done with school. There is too much money to be made by too many people for all of them to love, honor, and obey the NCAA, even if the NCAA were a respectable institution, but some Southeastern 240 Conference states such as Georgia, Florida and Alabama, as well as other states throughout the nation, in 1989, enacted laws requiring agents to be licensed by the state. What we should remember about "scandals" is that the NCAA, like Norby Walters, is in the business of signing up kids to make money. So why should we respect the NCAA any more than we do Walters? They are all in it for what they can get. The difference is, Walters admits it; the NCAA spouts holier-than-thou mumbo about education and amateurism while one of its most holy schools, North Carolina, admits a tailback named Derrick Fenner who scores a dunce's 450 on the SAT and is arrested for murder. How can we get worked up over a show-biz sleaze violating NCAA rules when the Atlantic Coast Conference, an alleged bastion of honor, has a dozen cases of corruption among its members? Chris Washburn and Olden Polynice stole things. Barry Word sold cocaine and Len Bias fell dead. Murder charges were filed against Fenner even as he tooled around campus in a cherry-red $24,000 BMW. At Clemson, there was institutionalized drug abuse. Count the North Carolina athletes who needed drug detox: Phil Ford, Walter Davis, . It moves one, almost, to say the NCAA and Norby Walters deserved each other. Almost, but not quite; for as dispiriting as it is to contemplate the NCAA's hypocrisy, it is worst to imagine big-time colleges giving up the ideal of education that the SEC, for one, has decided is important. What needs to be done is an overhaul of the rule book governing college athletics. The NCAA's rules are complex, contradictory and destructive of the very ideals they are expected to enhance. The NCAA has known from its inception that college athletes are being frauded through college, been the subject of largesse, a fancy word for secretive generosity, all the while staking his joyful alumni to bowl games and prime-time television viewing. College athletics are at their sickest state since Princeton played Yale in 1869. The NCAA is under siege because its book of rules, legislated by the members, is as thick as War and Peace, and because it has the audacity to investigate such vulnerable figures as Vince Dooley and the governor of Texas. Nothing worse has happened to college in this century than television. It is poisoning. It drives honest coaches and athletic directors to extremes to make themselves attractive to Madison Avenue, and it drives the middle-class colleges further down the class ladder. The primary problem is that big-time college sports has become "to commercialized." Somehow, many colleges have committed themselves to staging huge television extravaganzas. They 241 no longer can just compete against each other. They have to put on a show for the nation. And being in the entertainment business is expensive. Given these circumstances, one should not be surprised that many "so- called" educators begin to act, not as educators, but as producers, promoters, impresarios and entrepreneurs. When they act according to the values, not of higher education, but of show business, they hurt higher education and students. Institutions are hurt when athletic programs are operated like professional franchises. Achieving the "Final Four" or receiving a bowl bid or earning a place in the NCAA playoffs ought to be reward enough for the talents and successes of an athletic team and a college or university. The extrinsic rewards of hugh financial bonuses should be abolished and the money used to support the programs of all institutions that field athletic teams as a part and expression of their educational mission. But such notions have been dimmed by athletic directors of high-powered SEC athletic programs as "ridiculous," and nothing new. There is general agreement among SEC coaches and athletic directors that athletics do not take away from the intensity of the university's academic endeavors. There is a feeling among them that it is hypocritical for the public to believe that a college or a university with a very visible athletic program is somehow less interested in the quality of its academic programs. It is quickly pointed out that in 1986, Stanford won four national championships. But there is a rumor going around at a number of the SEC's athletic power houses that, in effect, "the university is striving to become one that the athletic program can be proud of." The argument for putting athletes on a payroll is that, well, the school is making a bundle of money on television and bowl games and the "Final Four," give the kids their slice. That can't be denied, but neither does it brighten the image of athletic departments that are allowed to function as a corporation separate from the college administration. There is something punid about that arrangement. If college presidents have been so defanged that they are without the bite to deal with an athletic administration because of alumni might, then they need to begin at the beginning again. Paying athletes won't change the laws of human nature. There will still be players wanting more than the rules allow. But from coast to coast, commentators, coaches, columnists, the alumnus on the street say in one voice, give the kids a handout each month. Be honest. Be up front. Colleges are making money on television, share the wealth with the players in monthly increments of $100, 242 $300, $1,000. The excuse for doing so could easily be that federal regulations demand leniency among minorities. Clearly, it is a plausible solution to exploitation and abuse in college athletics. In some cases the little monthly doles would not cover the kid's drug habit. In other cases, why should he be paid when in reality he is being trained to become an $8 million man. But lets give the hones players a real education, suggested one coach. And lets give them pocket money; say, $300 a month. While any other student can earn that much in a night job, such jobs are against NCAA rules for athletes. Small wonder that athletes are so eager to sign up with Norby Walters — just as they were eager to sign up almost 30 years ago when the new American Football League challenged the NFL. In 1959, the All-American halfback signed up with the pros even though he had a game, the Sugar Bowl, left in his LSU season. Cannon's secret contract with the Los Angeles Rams was not the work of Norby Walters. But maybe the Norby Walters of today such as the Ram's general manager who violated NCAA rules to sign up Cannon early. The GM's name was , former commissioner of the NFL. 15Moore, "You Can't," Bessier, Madness. pp. 83-119; Cunningham, "Recruiting," p. 8; Cromartie, Braaain Rights, pp. 147-54; Foote, "Up Grading," p. 4; Bok, "Put Athletics Back," p. 4; Hoffman, "Athletic Scholarship," p. 4; Schultz, "Public Needs," p. 1; Patrick D. Parks, "The Coach and His Players," The Physical Educator. 27 (October 1970): 106-17; Nelson Kane, "Too Much Pressure Put On Athletes," NCAA News. 25 Apr. 1988, p. 5; and Renee Sansing, "Dye: Cutting His Own Deal," The Atlanta Constitution. 8 Feb. 1989, Sec. E, p. 3. 16McCallum, Southeastern, pp. 220-33; Grizzard, "Jes' Ain't," p. 6; Minter, "Lets Don't Kill," p. 11; Will, "Tackling," p. 14; Ernie Chambers, "Pay Football Players," NCAA News. 25 Mar. 1988, pp. 1-3; Norman Frauenheim, "Agents Made Scapegoats," ibid., 25 Nov. 1988, p. 4; Gail Thomas, "In Higher Education, Clock Ticking Backward For Black Athletes,” ibid., 24 Nov. 1987, p. 4. 17Paul Dolan, Let The Bio Dog Bite (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), pp. 179-86; Jeff Prugh, Herschel Walker (New York: Random House, 1983), pp. 148-52; Terence Moore, "Despite Grim Statistics, Black Athletes Continue To Enter Plantation System," Upscale. 13 (February, 1988): 61- 68; Darryl Maxie, "Black Athletes: Winners or Losers In Academia," The Atlanta Constitution. 27 Nov. 1987, Sec. D, p. 8; Jeffrey Denberg, "Sammy Drummond: I Gave Everything I Had And It Was Taking Me Nowhere," The Atlanta Daily World. 243 12 Mar. 1987, Sec. C, p. 3. When it comes to the plantation systems that exist on college campuses, the statistics don't lie. The numbers show those who run mighty athletics departments have turned their football and basketball programs into temporary shelters for black youngsters, and the reasons have nothing to do with the Emancipation Proclamation. The reasons have much to do with exploitation by college coaches, administrators and boosters and naivete on the part of black youngsters and their families. Only one of 10,000 high school players in basketball or football reaches the professional level. Contrast that to the fact fewer than 30 percent of black athletes receive college degrees, and you have a frightening situation in the black community, were society has led youngsters to believe that their salvation will come from a $150 pair of sneakers and a little pump Greed perpetuates the myth. Colleges that reached major bowls last football season received an average of 3.6 million. Those who participated in college basketball's Final Four in 1989 will pocket $1.4 million apiece. So, despite recent attempts by the NCAA to make "the student-athlete" a reality, colleges continue to recruit black athletes who only can play. To worsen matters, one study indicates black families are eight times more likely to encourage their children to seek a pro career than white families. Black athletes don't see education as a top priority in their lives. They see it as a stepping-stone to the pros. What contributes to the overemphasis on athletics in the black community are statistics that do lie. More than 75 percent of NBA players are black, and so are nearly 60 percent of those in the NFL, and nearly 25 percent of those in major league baseball, according to spokespersons for the players' associations of each sport. The problem for black youngsters with athletics as their primary goal is that 1,316 positions are available for players in the NFL, 650 in the major leagues and 324 in t he NBA. And there are thousands of white and black athletes who compete each year in college and high schools with thoughts of obtaining one of those positions. Therefore, there are thousands of black youngsters who will leave campuses each year with no pro contract, no college degree, no hope. Black parents of athletes shouldn't tell them not to dream, but they should tell them to dream with their eyes open. Even NCAA executive director Dick Schultz joined the majority in admitting college football and basketball have become minor leagues for the pros. And as long as we have 244 that type of situation in those two sports, we'll have problems in regards to the black athlete. 18Minter, "Lets Don't Kill," p. 11; Stern, "Earlier Argument," p. 4; Chambers, "Pay Football," p. 4; Fred Milverstedt, "A Federal solution To Athlete Payoff," Athletic Business. 11 (June 1987): 24-32; Craig Nebb, "Agents of Turmoil," Sports Illustrated. 67 (August 2, 1987): 34-52. 19Will, "Tackling," p. 11; Austin, "A School," p. 4; Hoffman, "Athletic," p. 4; Kane, "Too Much Pressure," p. 5; Smith, "Sport," p. 27. 20Grizzard, "Coaches Seek To Ease," p. 4; Davison, "NCAA Ask," p. 7; Cunningham, "Recruiting," p. 8; Sansing, "Cutting," p. 3. 21McCallum, Southeastern. pp. 312-17; Charles Page, Themes in the Study of Sport: An Anthology (Boston: Little and Brown, 1981), pp. 14-37. 22David Sansing, The Foundation for Southern Attitudes. (Springfield, 111.: Charles C. Thomas, 1976), pp. 218-30; William Winter, "The Delicate Balance of Athletic Chemistry," Southern Growth Policies Board. 40 (November 1983): 228-35; Edwin M. Yodes, "Football Tells Some Small But Important Truths About The Old South," The Atlanta Constitution. 20 Oct. 1986, Sec. A, p. 19. 23Ernest Reese,. 'Why 700?" The Atlanta Journal. 18 July 1986, Sec. D, p. 5; Priscilla Painton, "Academic Losses Are Down," The Atlanta Voices 14 May 1986, Sec. B, p. 5; Foote, "Upgrading," p. 4; William Gervin, "New Academic Rule Could Put Athletes In a Bind," NCAA News. 25 Apr. 1988, p. 3; Arnold Ferrin, "Every Person Can Help Solve Education Woes," ibid., 25 March 1988, p. 3; Matt Winkeljohn, "Firm Plays Matchmaker Between Athletes and Colleges," The Afro-American. 7 Sept. 1990, Sec. A, p. 3; Lewis Grizzard, "Bubba and Earl: Go Dogsl War Eagle!" The Atlanta Constitution. 7 Sept. 1988, Sec. A, p. 1. Hosea William was a noted disciple of Martin Luther King, Jr., during the era of the Civil Rights Movement and continues to be an activist for racial equality and social justice in the South. BIBLIOGRAPHY

I . Primary Sources A. Interviews and Correspondence Allen, Rudy. Former Georgia Tech Football Player. August, 1989. Anderson, Ormand. High School Football Coach. November, 1986. Barnes, Karl. Former Georgia Tech Football Player. March, 1989. Benham, Chris. Production Supervisor. October, 1989. Bohannon, Lloyd. High School Football Coach. Noverber, 1986. Buggs, Danny. Former Professional Football Player. December, 1986. Campbell, Bill. Attorney and Politician. October, 1989. Carter, Hodding. Journalist. August, 1986. Cavan, Mike. Football Coach. November, 1986. Epps, Leonidas. Retired Football Coach and Athletic Director. Clark College, December, 1986. Fulcher, Bill. Former Georgia Tech Football Coach. August, 1989. Gaither, Jake. Retired Football Coach. Florida A&M University, November, 1986. Goodwin, Johnny. High School Football Coach. November, 1986. Harris, Joe. Former Georgia Tech Football Player. September, 1989.

245 246 Hill, Jesse. Insurance Broker and Civic Leader. October, 1989. Horne, Greg. Former Georgia Tech Football Player, November, 1989. Jackson, James. University of Georgia Quarterback. October, 1986. Jackson, Jesse. Minister, Civil Rights Activist and Politician. January, 1990. Johnson, Cleo. Former Georgia Tech Football Player. September, 1989. Johnson, Jimmy. Former Georgia Tech Football Player. March, 1989. Jones, Shawn. Georgia Tech Quarterback. December, 1989. Lowery, Joseph. President of The Southern Christian Leadership Conference. February, 1987. MacAfee, Arthur. Athletic Director. March, 1987. Martin, John. Athletic Director. April, 1987. Martin, Marvin. Former High School Football Player. November, 1986. McAshan, Eddie. Former Georgia Tech Quarterback. July, 1989. Mullins, Harold. Former High School Football Player. November, 1986. Note, Jeff Van. Former Professional Football Player. August, 1986. Pitts, Mike. Professional Football Player. October, 1986. Porter, Doug. Football Coach. December, 1986. Ramsey, Calvin. High School Football Coach. December, 1986. Rice, Homer. Athletic Director. March, 1990. Rino, Randy. Former Georgia Tech Football Player. September, 1989. 247 Robinson, Jimmy. Former Georgia Tech Football Player. March, 1989. Smith, Loran. Sport Information Director. November, 1986. Turner, Gary. Former University of Mississippi football player and current Police Chief of West Point, Mississippi. March, 1989. Walker, Eugene. Historian. September, 1986. Walker, Willis. Father of Herschel Walker. December, 1989. Williams, Hosea. civil Rights Activist, Politician, Minister and Businessman. February, 1990. Wilson, Richard. Physician. September, 1989. Young, Andrew. Former Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. February, 1987.

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Jackson Clarion-Ledoer. 17 February 1956, Sec. B, p. 1. Garner, Fred. "A Solution To Scandals In College Athletics." NCAA News. 24 October 1987, p. 4. 250 Gervin, William. "New Athletic Rule Could Put Athletes In A Bind." NCAA News. 25 April 1988, p. 3. Gibson, Ron. "Police, Firemen Dispense Demonstrators With Fire Hoses." Afro-American. 23 June 1980, Sec. B, p. 3. Goins, Bob. "Bryant Keeps Tide Adrift." Los Angeles Herald Examiner. 12 December 1961, Sec. E, p. 4. Got hard, Andy. "I Ain't No Fieldhand: A Black Athlete Who Beat The System." Spaulding Countv Daily News. 4 October 1981, Sec. B, p. 5. Graham Kevin. "Time On His Hands." Miami Herald. 30 March 1986, Sec. F, p. 2. Graves, Bryan. "Wrightsville Marchers Continue Despite Court Defeat." Atlanta Journal. 3 February 1983, Sec. B, p. 2. Grizzard, Lewis. "God Makes The Weather and SEC Makes The Rankings." Atlanta Constitution. 12 September 1985, Sec. B, p. 1. ______. "Walker To Georgia, Have Ya Heard." Atlanta Journal. 25 February 1983, Sec. B, p. 2. ______. "Jes' Ain't Gonna Make The Kickoff." Atlanta Constitution 16 November 1985, Sec. D, p. 6. ______. "One Dog Walking." Atlanta Constitution. 11 July 1986, Sec. A, pp. 1-2. ______. "Bubba and Earl: Go Dogs! War Eagle!" Atlanta Constitution. 7 September 1988, Sec. A, p. 1. ______. "Coaches Seek To Ease Players Financial Load." Atlanta Daily World. 9 September 1986, Sec. B, p. 4. ______. "A Hero No So-Squeaky Clean." Atlanta Journal. 30 February 1983, Sec. E, p. 1. ______. "Long As The Play Good On Sardy." Atlanta fflBMPMLI, 16 July 1986, Sec, A, p. 1. Hagan, Gail. "Injunction Sought By Bowl Officials." Memphis Commercial Anneal. 12 December 1972, Sec. A, p. 3. 251 Halvorsen, David. "Cicero Officials Ask For Alert of Troups." Chicago Tribune. 10 August 1966, Sec. A, p. 1. Hansen, Jane. "A New Wave of Segregation." Atlanta Constitution. 27 September 1987, Sec. A, p. 1. Hays, Hal. "Putting Foes In Heavy Lather." Knoxville Times. 30 November 1956, Sec. 6, p. 3. Herren, Fran. "Reagan Policies Limiting Blacks' Access to College." Atlanta Journal. 17 Hay 1988, Sec. C, p. 6. Heys, Sam. "Past And Present In Forsyth County: Its A Battleground For Us And Them." Atlanta Constitution. 25 February 1987, Sec. B, pp. 2-3. Hill, Alma. "New Tactics To Atack Subtle Racism." Atlanta Constitution. 29 December 1987, Sec. C, p. 8. Hinton, Ed. "Sloan Leaves Ole Miss For Duke." Atlanta Constitution. 17 February 1981, Sec. D, p. 13. ______. "Rebels Returning To Old Ways." Atlanta Constitution. 14 November 1986, Sec. D, p. 3. ______. "Brewer of Trouble." Atlanta Constitution. 14 October 1989, Sec. E, p. 12. ______. "Transition To Dooley Wasn't Smooth.” Atlanta Journal. 8 February 1989, Sec. D, p. 11. Hoffman, Rich. "Athletic Scholarship Not Enough." Nashville Commercial Appeal. 4 May 1988, Sec. C, p. 4. Holman, Carl. "Georgia At High Noon." Atlanta Voice. 21 July 1961, Sec. A, p. 1. Honig, Donald. "Playing For Keeps." Baton Rouge Biscavne. 7 December 1969, Sec. C, p. 9. Hood, Orley. "Tackling The Color Barrier." Jackson Clarion-Ledger. 5 November 1987, Sec. B, p. 3. Howard, Susan. "QB's Role Is Now More A Black and White Issue." Atlanta Journal. 12 December 1987, Sec. C, p. 4. Hulbert, Dan. "Dupree Goes Sooner." Neshoba County Democrat. 13 August 1982, Sec. A, p. 1. 252 Jenkins, Jarvis. "Paralyzing Mediocre In Football: A Series of Catastrophies and Embarrassments." Miami Herald. 11 July 1984, Sec. E, p. 2. Jones, Monk. "Eaves Questions Vols' Motives." Atlanta Journal. 9 September 1968, Sec. C, p. 5. Justen, Thomas E. "Dupree Thinks Big: Like Texas." Scott County Times. 9 February 1983 Sec. F, p. 4. Kane, Nelson. "Too Much Pressure Put on Athletes." NCAA News. 25 April 1988, p. 5. Kelly, Michael. "Who Needs All That Abuse Anyway?" NCAA News. 25 March 1988, p. 11. Kent, Mailon. "Auburn Is Really A Family With Jackson Living In Dorm." Opelika-Auburn News. 26 July 1984, Sec. B, p. 2. Kindred, David. "Ten Commandments For Cleaning Up College Athletics." Southside Sun. 1 March 1986, Sec. C, p. 3. Kunstel, Marcia. "The Civil Rights Hero Who Shuns That Title." Washington Post. 30 July 1990, Sec. 13, p. 5. Lamar, Harold. "Jackets Lose Stinger." Atlanta Daily World. 30 November 1972, Sec. D, p. 3. Lee, Thonnia. "The Struggle Against Racism Is Not Over." Atlanta Journal. 28 June 1987, Sec. J, p. 8. Levene, George. "Up And At Em Team." Knoxville Sentinel. 21 October 1958, Sec. 4, p. 2. Lumkler, Cass. "Alexander To Meet With Governor, Regents." Atlanta Constitution. 26 October 1934, Sec. A, p. 1. Maher, Curtis. "The Negro Athlete In America." Los Angeles Timesf 24 March 1968, Sec. C, p. 3. Maher, John. "A Chance To Peer Into Football's Soul." Opelika-Auburn News. 30 August 1982, Sec.. B, p. 2. Mahone, Derrick. "Consistency Has Been The Problem.” Atlanta Constitution. 31 December 1983, Sec. D, p. 13. Matacia, Eva. "Long, Hot Summer of 1964 Etched In Black and White.” Atlanta Journal. 28 June 1987, Sec. J, p. 4. 253 Maxie, Darryl. "Black Athletes: Winners Or Losers In Academia." Atlanta Constitution. 27 November 1987, Sec. D, p. 8. ______. "Keeping Up With The Joneses." Atlanta Constitution. 21 August 1990, Sec. D, p. 4. McCollister, Tom. "Ole Miss Fans Have Reason To Hope." Oxford Daily Register. 21 October 1986, Sec. E, p. 2. McGill, Burnett. "Last Guys Finish Nice." Atlanta Journal. 18 January 1983, Sec. D, p. 7. McGill, Ralph. "All In The Name of The Game." Atlanta Journal. 16 September 1947, Sec. E, p. 12. McGreevy, Brian. "A Challenge For Us All." Atlanta Daily World. 15 January 1988, Sec. C, p. 2. McKinley, Ron. "Color The Ruling Class Crimson White." Tuscaloosa News. 8 December 1980, Sec. B, p. 3. McManus, Niel R. "Next Century Has Been A Long Time Coming." Mississippi Press Leader. 23 July 1987, Sec. E, p . 6. Means, John. "Fire Hoses, Billy Sticks, Rout Night Demonstrators." Danville Register. 11 June 1965, Sec. B, p. 2. Minshew, Wayne. "No Holtz Barred." Atlanta Constitution. 5 January 1980, Sec. B, p. 3. ______. "The Question of Mixed Football." Atlanta Journal. 8 January 1956, Sec. A, p. 11. Minter, Jim. "Rambling From The Wreckage." Atlanta Constitution. 10 December 1972, Sec. C, p. 13. ______. "An Unwitting Pawn In The Civil Rights Movement." Atlanta Journal. 23 November 1972, Sec. B, p. 7. ______. "A Worrisome Return To Bigotry." Atlanta Constitution. 14 December 1986, Sec. A, p. 19. ______. "Let's Don't Kill Collegiate Athletics." Atlanta Constitution. 11 January 1987, Sec. E, p. 11. ______• "No. l: Bring On Bama." Atlanta Journal. 2 January 1980, Sec. D, p. 1. 254 Mitchell, Steve. "War Eagles Ridiculed." Birmingham News. 3 December 1972, Sec. D, p. 8. Monroe, Doug. "11 Rights Advocates Seized." Memphis Commercial Appeal. 29 November 1972, Sec. A, p. 3. Moore, Jim. "Transylvania Best Centre College." Lexington Transcript. 13 April 1980, Sec. A, p. 2. Moore, Terence. "You Can't Get Ahead If You Try." Atlanta Constitution. 23 August 1985, Sec. E, p. 10. ______. "Position Segregation Keeps Blacks In Check." Atlanta Constitution. 17 December 1989, Sec. D, p. 12. ______. "Alabama 23, Nebraska 0." Atlanta Daily World. 11 September 1978, Sec. D, p. 6. Morris, Eugene. "Meredith Wants Cas For Memories." Atlanta Daily World. 12 September 1987, Sec. B, p. 9. Murray, Jim. "Alabama Can't Win The Big One." Los Angeles Herald Examiner. 4 November 1961, Sec. F, .17. Neaton, Richard A. "Rebels Pose To Dispel Gloom." Mississippi Press Leader. 27 August 1988, Sec. C, p. 1. Nossiter, Adam."Ole Miss Succeeds By Selling Drawbacks." Southern Sentinel. 15 July 1988, Sec. B, p. 3. O'Toole, Thomas. "Georgia De-Emphasizes Recruiting Walker By Boosters." Atlanta Tribune. 16 December 1980, Sec. C, p. 1. Pack, Larry. "No Vote For Vols." Knoxville Times. 12 December 1957, Sec. B, p. 8. Painton, Priscilla. "Academic Losses Are Down." Atlanta Voice. 14 May 1986, Sec. B, p. 5. Percy, Dudley. "Ole Miss' Football Face Is Changing." Oxford Daily Register. 18 September 1987, Sec. B, p. 6. Pomerantz, Gary. "Time Hasn't Erased Mastery, Mystery of Eddie McAshan, The QB Who Walked Out of Practice Into History." Atlanta Constitution. 5 November 1988, Sec. G, pp. 1-2. Price, Richard and Stewart, Bob. "Peace Prevails As Police Jail Demonstrators." Jackson Clarion-Ledger. July 1968, Sec. A, pp. 1-3. 255 Reeves, Charles. "Tide Rolls Canes." Miami Herald. 16 March 1970, Sec. E, p. 9. Renfro, Chico. "It's Nothin? But Modern Day Slavery." Atlanta Daily World. 8 December 1972, Sec. B, .6. Reese, Ernest. "Racial Makup of The Southeastern Conference." Atlanta Constitution. 18 August 1985, Sec. D, p. 11. ______. "Why 700." Atlanta Journal. 18 July 1986, Sec. D, p . 5. Riner, Duane. "Subtle Racism Color Life At Vanderbilt.” Atlanta Journal. 26 November 1987, Sec. B, p. 4. Rodell, Mark D. "SEC Finding A Fairer Divining of Athletics." Atlanta Inquirer. 4 August 1974, Sec. C, p. 3. Rogers, Prentis. "Unfiltered Truth About College Football." Atlanta Journal. 29 May 1990, Sec. E, p. 2. Ryan, Joseph. "Integration: Accept It." Atlanta Constitution. 10 October 1951, Sec. A, pp. 3-4. Salter, Sid. "Old Philadelphia." Scott Countv Times. 12 October 1983, Sec. A, p. 7. Sampson, Arthur. "Southern Miss Edges Jax State." Jackson Clarion-Ledoer. 1 November 1987, Sec. C, p. 2. Sansing, Rene. "Dye Cuttin Own Deal." Atlanta Constitution. 8 February 1989, Sec. E, p. 3. Schultz, Richard. Public Needs A Truer Picture of College Athletics." NCAA News. 12 October 1987, p. 1. Scott, Portia. "Students Arrested In Jackson." Atlanta Daily World. 19 July 1968, Sec. F, p. 2. ______. "Abernathy, NAACP To Give Beale Street The Blues." Atlanta Daily World. 14 December 1972, Sec. A, p. 3. ______. "The Old South." Atlanta Daily World. 27 Sepember 1986, Sec. A, pp. 1-4. Scott, Stanley. "Oglethrope's Georgia." Atlanta Journal. 19 November 1952, Sec. A, p. 4. 256 Seabrook, Charles. "Brewer: A University Should Behave As A Family, Not A coroporation." Oxford Daily Register. 29 July 1987, Sec. E, p. 10. Shaw, Bvd. "Tide Humiliated 41-14." Atlanta Inquirer. 14 September 1970, Sec. B, p. 6. Sheeley, Gleen. "Football's Southern Dynasty." Atlanta Journal. 20 October 1987, Sec. F, pp. 1-5. Sheldon, Eugene. "Georgia Revamps Without Herschel." Athens Banner Herald. 20 August 1983, Sec. B, p. 6. Shepard, Scott. "Where Are They Now." Nashville Banner. 6 May 1987, Sec. B, p. 4. Siler, Tom. "For The Record." Knoxville Daily News. 10 December 1979, Sec. B, p. 3. Simama, Jabari. "News On Black Colleges Troubling." Atlanta Journal. 17 April 1987, Sec. C, p. 8. Sizer, Bobby. "Football's Mystique." Atlanta Constitution 12 October 1938, Sec. E, p. 5. Smith, Red. "Sport Scans." New York Herald Tribune. 17 January 1956, Sec. H, . 21. Smith, Ruby D. "Nonviolence Can Work In Georiga.” Atlanta Inquirer. 5 August 1961, Sec. B, p. 10. Smith, Vic. "City Officials Reject Black Group's Demands." Atlanta Constitution. 18 May 1980, Sec. C., p. 5. Stanton, Al. "Problems Found In Colleges' Remedial Programs." Atlanta Inquirer. 5 August 1986, Sec. C, p. 2 . Stern, Bill. "An Earlier Argument Against Pay For Play." NCAA News. 12 October 1987, p. 24. Stokes, William. "Around The County." Walthall Countv Adviser. Sec. A, pp. 1-2. Stokley, William B. "Not Altogether Gentlemanly." Knoxville Times. 2 October 1966, Sec. D, p. 13. Stowers, Carlton. "The Oil Land Express.” Daily Oklahoman. 19 November 1982, Sec. D, p. 1. 257 Strickland, Haywood. "The Men Who Integrated Deep South Football." Atlanta Daily World. 4 October 1980, Sec. A, p. 2. Strong, Bill. "Time To Take A Firm Stand." Atlantta Daily World. 30 October 1984, Sec. B, p. 1. Sverdlik, Alan. "Historians Appraising Wallace's Prejudices" Atlanta Tribune. 18 May 1987, Sec. B, p. 1. Taubert, Clifton. "Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored." Atlanta Daily World. 30 October 1984, Sec. B, p. 1. Teepen, Tom. "Modern South Has No Need To Keep The Symbols of Oppression." Atlanta Constitution. 17 November 1987, Sec. A, p. 19. Thomas, Gail. "In Higher Education, Clock Ticking Backward For Black Athletes." NCAA News. 24 November 1987, p. 4. Thomas, Keith S. "Black Colleges: Tradition In Transition." Atlanta Constitution. 1 September 1987, Sec. B, p. 21. Thomson, Bailey. "Southern Football Illustrates Our Reality." Orlando Sentinel. 8 November 1988, Sec. A, p. 11. Tucker, Cynthia. "Herschel Walker: Gone To The Dogs." Atlanta Constitution. 24 June 1981, Sec. B, p. 2. Turnipseed, Tom. "Storming the Citadel." Atlanta Constitution. 13 March 1988, Sec. B, p. 4. Vickers, Robert J. "Ole Miss Blacks Pick Up Baton For Civil Rights." Southern Standard. 11 October 1989, Sec. B, p. 6. Viondi, Jim. "Yellow Jacket Stings SEC." Atlanta Constitution. 22 January 1956, Sec. B, p. 3. ______. "Pearl Great Signs With Vanderbilt." Atlanta 22UEn&l, 20 June 1975, Sec. C, p. 9. ______. 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C. Magazines And Other Periodicals Andus, Neil. "Scrooge Is Still Alive" Time. 51 (October 19, 1964): 14. Axthelm, Pete. "The Angry Black Athlete." Newsweek. 15 (July 3, 1968): 56-58. Baggett, McMillian. "Abusers Rip-Off $3 Million Annually." Southern News. 3 (July 1988): 16-18. Baldwin, James. "The Dangerous Road Before Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper's. 15 (February 1960): 24-31. Bennett, Lerone Jr. "Is History Repeating Itself." Ebonv. 34 (October 1989): 46-52. Borders, Joel. "Pride Is Up As Prejudice Goes Down." Ebonv. 46 (November 1986): 54-61. Boyd, Malcolm. "Violence In Los Angeles." Christian Century. 28 (July 1966): 13-17. Branch, Michael. "Tavern On The Grid." Atlanta Night Life. 13 (June 1987): 52. Caraway, Wyatt. "Preserving The Past." Prospectus. 9 (March 1981): 33. Croyle, John. "Color The Ruling Class Red and White." Enterprise. 8 (December 1976): 4. Drape, Joe. "Strength of Heroes Is In Shared Experiences." Reflector. 47 (November 1986): 11-27. Gammon, Peter. "No More Rainbow Sign." Sports Illustrated. 65 (July 1986: 34-40. ______. "One Woe After Another." Sports Illustrated. 65 (August 23, 1986): 28-34. Harvey, Booker. "The Morris Brown Wolverines." Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. 6 (January 1964): 57-61. 260 ______. "A Brief Survey of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference." Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference From 1913-1963. 23 (January 1984): 78. Hudson, Lars. "Black Workers In The Deep South." Black Enterprise. 20 (June 1986): 97-113. Ignatuis, David. "Building A New Base For Prosperity." Southeastern Conference. 21 (March 1969): 6-19. Jenkins, Dan. "Teaching Old Dog New Tricks.” Sports Illustrated. 58 (March 1983): 14-20. Kane, Martin. "An Assessment of Black Is Best." Sports Illustrated. 18 (January 12, 1971): 72-83. King, Coretta Scott. "Martin's Legacy." Ebonv. 12 (January 1986): 105-24. Loegard, John. "A Separate Path To Equality.” Time. 22 (October 29, 1967): 31-44. Looney, Douglas S. "The Bare Facts Are He's A Star." Sports Illustrated. 57 (July 23, 1982): 32-40. ______. "It Was a Herschel Walkover." Sports Illustrated. 57 (November 14, 1986): 26-32. Mahoney, William. "In Pursuit of Freedom." Harper's. 23 (November 1963): 93-101. Major, Kenny. "The Graduates.” Sports Illustrated. 66 (June 1987): 60-1. Mayfield, Julien. "The Five Battles of Atlanta." Atlanta Advocate. 32 (July 1978): 62-89. Miller, Robert M. "Birmingham: Nonviolence In Black, Violence In White." Chritian Century. 28 (July 1966): 7-11. Milverstedt, Fred. "A Federal Solution To Athlete Payoff." 17 (June 1987): 24-32. Moore, Kenny. "To Baffle and Amaze." Sports Illustrated. 57 (November 30, 1982): 22-8. Moore, Terence. "Despite Grim Statistis, Black Athletes Continue To Enter Plantation System." Upscale. 21 (February 1988): 61-8. 261 Moore, William. "A Taste of That Not So Old College Spirit." Upscale. 13 (February 1984): 54*63. Morgan, Thomas. "Requiem or Revival." Look. 41 (August 1968): 73-75. Nebb, Craig. "One Shock Wave After Another." Sports Illustrated. 65 (November 10, 1986): 18-23. Norment, Lynn. "Memorial Events In Black Sport." Ebonv. 18 (October 1952): 120-8. Olsen, Jack. "A Shameful Story." Sports Illustrated. 29 (July 16, 1968): 20-31. ______. "In An Alien World." Sports Illustrated. 29 (July 23, 1968): 30-43. Papanek, John. "All The Way On Every Play." Sports Illustrated. 57 (October 9, 1983): 44-52. Parker, Reginald. "In May Ways Eddie McAshan Is The Jackie Robinson of Southern Football." Ebonv. 35 (December 1970): 23-7. Quarles, Benjamin. "The Danger Of A Little Progress." Ebonv. 12 (November 1967): 68-86. Raines, Howell. "A Game Within A Game." New Republic. 40 (December 1983): 159-73. Rason, Lou. "Harry Edwards, Covering All The Bases: Tough Talk On Black Sports and Challenges Ahead." Ebonv. 21 (March 1983): 15-22. Romero, Patrica. "The South: Notes From The Bottom of The Mountain." U.S. News and World Report. 30 (September 1963): 58. Sander, John. "Cotton Patch Football." Newsweek. 13 (November 1933): 19. Saunders, Doris. "The Kennedy Years and The Negro." Ebonv. 36 (December 1968): 12-39. Simons, Kelvin. "Southeastern Conference Playbook." Southeastern Conference. 12 (August 1953): 41-56. Telander, Rick. "A Singular Way To Play Football." Sports Illustrated. 57 (September 17, 1982): 24-36. 262 ______. "The College Athlete." Sports Illustrated. 66 (August 26, 1986): 12-18. Thomas, Tom R. "When The Adrenalin Flows." Scholastic Coach. 48 (Septeber 1978): 106-10. Tobin, R.S. "Sports As An Integrator." Saturday Review. 21 (January 1967): 31-2. Todd, Terry. "Generally, It Was A Herschel Walkover." Sports Illustrated. 59 (July 8, 1983): 20-26. Underwood, John. "Does Herschel Have Georgia On His Mind." Sports Illustrated. 59 (November 3, 1983): 22-28. ______. "In Black and White." Sports Illustrated. 19 (February 24, 1968): 61-69. Wattleton, Faye. "Black Student Presidents At White Colleges." Ebonv. 28 (March 1988): 19-23. White, Frank. "Blacks At White Colleges: Learning To Cope." Ebonv. 25 (March 1985): 116-24. Wiley, Ralph. "Back On Track With A Tailback: Freshman I Back Marcus Dupres Has Oklahoma Running Once Again." Sports Illustrated. 57 (October 13, 1982): 63-68. Williams, Hosea. "SCLC Puts Might of Its Organization Into Boycott." Southern Chritian Leadership Conference. 41 (July 1964): 1-2. Winter, William. "The Delicate Balance of Athletic Chemistry." Southern Growth Policies Board. 10 (August 1971): 27. Zimmerman, Paul. "Commanding General Herschel Walker." Sports Illustrated. 58 (March 18, 1983): 40-52. Zuga, Fred. "The Certified Athlete." Sports Illustrated. 63 (March 11, 1986): 16-23.

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